NFL Insider Believes Cardinals Would Get Day 2 Pick for DeAndre Hopkins
What an offseason this has been for the Arizona Cardinals.
Kliff Kingsbury and Steve Keim are gone. Kyler Murray is less than a month removed from ACL surgery, and the team reportedly is looking to trade DeAndre Hopkins at some point in the offseason according to The Score's Jordan Schultz.
Hopkins, who has Arizona's top cap hit for next season with $30 million, is "likely" to seek a new contract according to Schultz. Per Spotrac, only Tyreek Hill ($31.45 million) has a larger cap hit at the receiver position for 2023.
Perhaps a separation may do both sides good. The Cardinals may look to hit the reset button this offseason and Hopkins - towards the end of his career - may want another opportunity to place elsewhere.
New general manager Monti Ossenfort was supposed to speak with Hopkins this week, but nothing has emerged on that front.
In a separate report from Schultz, Hopkins is rumored to want to play for either the Jacksonville Jaguars or Los Angeles Chargers. Both teams made the playoffs, have young quarterbacks and are in warm weather destinations.
However, both are already committing large chunks of change to their separate wide receiver rooms.
A trade for Hopkins won't be easy considering his age and contract status. Hopkins also has a no-trade clause that allows him to veto any potential deal he doesn't like.
We've seen receivers such as Davante Adams, Tyreek Hill and A.J. Brown dealt in recent memory, yet it appears top compensation will be far more difficult to obtain due to the aforementioned reasons.
When it comes to what exactly Arizona could expect, Sports Illustrated's Albert Breer believes a Day 2 pick in the NFL Draft (round two/three) might be what gets a deal done for both teams. He listed four different reasons:
- Injuries: "He’s played in 19 of 34 games the last two seasons, after showing a lot of fight in battling through a series of injuries to miss just two games over his first eight seasons as a pro."
- Ability to practice: "If you have a strong veteran roster that’s won, you can manage that. But if you’re younger, or you haven’t won yet, it’s harder to have one of your best players missing during long stretches of practice weeks, both from a functional and a culture standpoint."
- Money: "He’s due $19.45 million in cash next year, and $14.92 million in 2024. And that’s assuming he wouldn’t use a trade to try to leverage more cash off the team dealing for him."
- Age: "He’ll be 31 years old on opening day. On the surface, that doesn’t seem disqualifying for a receiver. But that’s how old A.J. Green was when he went from Cincinnati to Arizona, and he’s had just 78 catches for 1,084 yards and five touchdowns in 31 games since."
Breer finished with:
"So add that up, and I think it’s going to be hard for Ossenfort to get great value for Hopkins, maybe even to the point where keeping him is a better idea than dealing him. As it stands right now, if I had to ballpark it, I’d say a Day 2 pick would be what Arizona would get in return in a trade."
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