Josh Mauro, a former NFL defensive lineman who played eight seasons across five teams, died on Thursday, April 23, 2026. He was 35 years old.
His father, Greg Mauro, announced the news publicly on Tuesday, April 28, via Facebook. No cause of death has been given.
Greg Mauro’s statement was brief and heartbroken and said everything that needed to be said.
“With many tears and broken hearts, yet anchored in the unshakable certainty that our precious Josh Mauro is now healed and made new, living in the presence of the Lord, we humbly covet your prayers as our family walks through the devastating loss of our amazing son, brother, uncle, grandson and friend. On Thursday, April 23rd, Josh breathed his last breath on this Earth and his first breath in heaven.”
The Arizona Cardinals, the team he played for longest, released a statement:
“We are heartbroken to learn of the passing of Josh Mauro. Our thoughts are with his family, friends, and all who knew him.”
Who Was Josh Mauro?
Josh Mauro was born on February 17, 1991, in St. Albans, England, where his father was stationed for work.
The family eventually relocated to Texas, where Mauro developed into a football player good enough to earn a scholarship to Stanford University.
That journey, from England to Texas to one of the most academically rigorous universities in the country to eight years in the NFL, reflects the kind of person the people who knew him described him as.
At Stanford from 2010 to 2013, Mauro became one of the more productive defensive linemen the program had seen. He recorded 81 tackles, 12.5 tackles for loss, 11 sacks and two forced fumbles over his college career.
He was nominated for several national awards as a senior and earned All-Pac-12 honorable mention recognition. At 6 feet 6 inches and 290 pounds, he was physically built for the next level. The NFL scouts noticed.
Despite his production, Mauro went undrafted in the 2014 NFL Draft. He signed with the Pittsburgh Steelers as an undrafted free agent, which is the hardest path into professional football, no guaranteed roster spot, no signing bonus of consequence, just a chance to compete.
The Steelers cut him before the season began. Most players whose NFL career ends that way never play a professional snap. Mauro was not most players.
Mauro’s Magnificent Career After Being Undrafted
The Arizona Cardinals signed Mauro after the Steelers released him, and that decision began what became the most stable portion of his career. He played five games and made two starts as a rookie in 2014.
He came back for 2015, then 2016, then 2017, four consecutive seasons with the same organization, earning expanded roles and eventually a starting position in the process.
His best season came in 2016, when he started 13 of 15 games and finished with 32 tackles, including seven tackles for loss.
That kind of interior defensive line production, disruptive, consistent, present in the run game, is not the statistic that makes highlight reels. It is the statistic that makes coaches want you on their roster.
Over his first stint with Arizona, he played 47 games with 26 starts, recording 75 tackles and two sacks.
Former Cardinals player and executive Adrian Wilson captured what Mauro meant to an organization in a statement posted to X after the news broke. “Prayers go out to Josh Mauro and his family.
Had the opportunity to be around Josh for several years with [head coach Bruce Arians]. Always in shape, always was ready to go wherever he got that call. One of the things I respected most about him. You could depend on him.”
That quality, dependability, is the through-line of how the people who worked with Mauro described him.
The NFL is a league where roster spots are contested weekly and depth linemen are often treated as interchangeable.
Mauro kept finding ways to make himself not interchangeable, not by becoming a star but by becoming someone coaches could count on every single time they called.
In 2018 he signed with the New York Giants and played 12 games. In 2019 he was with the Oakland Raiders for a season.
He had a brief stint with the Jacksonville Jaguars before returning to Arizona for the 2020 and 2021 seasons.
That return to the Cardinals, to the organization that first believed in him when the Steelers did not, is its own quiet statement about where he felt at home in the league.
His final NFL game was in 2021 with the Cardinals. Over eight seasons and 80 games with five organizations, he finished with 130 combined tackles, 20 for loss, five sacks, two forced fumbles and five passes defended.
He started 40 of those 80 games. He played to the very end of what his body and the market would allow, which is the most you can ask of any player who never had the security of a guaranteed contract.
The Family Statement
Greg Mauro’s Facebook post went beyond the facts of the death. It was the statement of a father reaching for faith in the middle of something unbearable, trying to offer a frame for the loss that his family could stand inside.
He described his son as “amazing” and listed the roles Josh occupied in the lives of the people who loved him, son, brother, uncle, grandson, friend. He asked for prayers. He said Josh was now healed and made new.
The specifics of what illness or circumstance took Josh Mauro at 35 have not been shared publicly. His father’s words, “now healed,” suggest a battle of some kind.
The family has not elaborated and the request implicit in Greg Mauro’s statement is to be allowed to grieve without having to answer every question.
The football world has responded with that grace. Tributes on social media have focused on what Mauro was like to be around, not on how he died.
Wilson’s tribute was characteristic of what former teammates and coaches have said, a man who showed up, stayed ready, and could be counted on. That is the reputation. That is what remains.
A Tragic Loss Stings The NFL
Josh Mauro played college football at Stanford. He went undrafted and made a career anyway.
He played eight seasons in the NFL when most undrafted players never play one. He did it by being in shape and being ready and being dependable in a league that asks those things of everyone and rewards only the exceptional.
He was not supposed to make the league. He made it. He was not supposed to stay in it. He stayed for eight years.
The Arizona Cardinals put out a statement. His former teammates and coaches put out statements.
His father wrote a Facebook post that anyone who has lost someone will recognize immediately as the writing of a person trying to hold himself together at the center of something that cannot be held.
Josh Mauro died on April 23, 2026. He was 35.
