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This yr’s vast receiver free-agent class has not generated a lot buzz, and the Bengals and Chargers have respectively indicated Tee Higgins and Keenan Allen are usually not obtainable. This stands to raise the markets for the receivers groups do placed on the commerce block. It will have an effect on the Cardinals.
Arizona could also be far down the highway on a Hopkins commerce. The Playing cards have the parameters of a commerce in place, based on veteran NFL reporter Mike Jurecki (on Twitter). The Playing cards ought to be anticipated to obtain a second-round decide and both a conditional draft selection in an unspecified spherical or an extra participant, Jurecki provides.
Hopkins, 30, has been rumored to be on the transfer for a bit now. The Cardinals have gone by with a employees overhaul, hiring a brand new GM (Monti Ossenfort) and head coach (Jonathan Gannon). Ossenfort has spoken with Hopkins, and commerce curiosity has begun to re-emerge. The Playing cards have fielded calls on their prime wideout. Gannon stopped in need of guaranteeing Hopkins can be a Cardinal in 2023. Hopkins and Brandin Cooks are seen as the highest commerce items on the receiver place in the interim, however final yr illustrated the market can definitely change.
The six-game PED suspension Hopkins incurred final yr voided the no-trade clause in his Cardinals extension. Two years stay on that contract, which was agreed to shortly after the Playing cards acquired Hopkins from the Texans in 2020. Though the Playing cards rebuffed inquiries about Hopkins’ availability forward of the 2022 commerce deadline, the 10-year veteran’s identify has been on the block since January.
A staff that acquires Hopkins might effectively want to finish one other contract. He’s set to earn $19.45M in base wage. Whereas the previous All-Professional’s present cap quantity ($30.75M) wouldn’t switch over to his subsequent staff, the bottom wage can be the buying staff’s accountability. Tyreek Hill, Davante Adams and A.J. Brown agreed to new offers upon being traded final yr, and the Browns restructured Amari Cooper’s contract not lengthy after touchdown him.
Hopkins ripped off three straight First-Staff All-Professional seasons within the late 2010s. Regardless of the latest one coming in 2019, the Texans traded him to the Playing cards in March 2020 — in a broadly panned deal that didn’t ship Houston a first-round decide. It will, then, be fascinating if the Cardinals managed to fetch a second for Hopkins given the downward pattern of the previous two seasons. Hopkins suffered a number of accidents that ended his 2021 marketing campaign early, and after the PED ban sidetracked his 2022 slate, the 10-year veteran suffered a minor damage that shut him down close to the top of Arizona’s dreadful marketing campaign.
A wideout market topped by the likes of Jakobi Meyers and JuJu Smith-Schuster, together with Odell Beckham Jr. coming off a missed season, ought to create alternatives for the Cardinals and Texans relating to Hopkins and Cooks. Though Hopkins solely performed in 9 video games final season, his 79.2-yard per-game common far outpaced his 2021 quantity. He posted a 1,407-yard season in 2020, when he performed 16 video games. Whereas Hopkins’ inventory has dropped, it isn’t exhausting to think about a receiver-needy staff betting on him to bounce again. The transfer would assist a Cardinals squad that appears to be begrudgingly, after extending each Kliff Kingsbury and Steve Keim a yr in the past, committing to a rebuild.
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