Cardinals Unlikely To Trade DeAndre Hopkins During Draft

Cardinals new GM Monti Ossenfort told reporters after the first round of the draft that he doesn’t expect to trade veteran WR DeAndre Hopkins at any point during the draft.

“I don’t foresee that happening,” Ossenfort said, via ESPN.com. “I don’t know what is going to happen here in the next couple days. Right now, I don’t foresee that happening, no.”

“DeAndre’s a Cardinal,” Ossenfort added, “and we’re moving forward.

There was a report that the Cardinals had spoken to the Titans about Hopkins. However, nothing came of it. 

ESPN’s Dan Graziano and Jeremy Fowler recently reported that teams interested in trading for Hopkins have been insistent on Arizona picking up some of Hopkins’ salary. However, the Cardinals have so far been reluctant to do that because it defeats a major purpose of trading Hopkins in the first place. 

Fowler adds there’s some thought in NFL circles that the Cardinals will end up simply releasing Hopkins because the draft pick won’t be worth the money they’d have to take on. He’s owed a base salary of $19.45 million in 2023

Hopkins has received permission from the Cardinals to seek a trade and a number of teams have been linked as having interest. However, he remains in Arizona due to a combination of his age, injury history, salary and the Cardinals’ asking price, which at one point was a second-round pick. 

Hopkins is owed over $33 million in the final two years of his deal but has no remaining guarantees. He’s still been highly productive although he’ll turn 31 this year. 

Hopkins, 30, is a former first-round pick of the Texans back in 2013. Houston later traded Hopkins to the Cardinals in return for David Johnson and draft picks. 

Hopkins was in the third year of his five-year, $81 million extension that included $49 million guaranteed when he agreed to a two-year, $54.5 million extension with the Cardinals. 

Hopkins is owed base salaries of $19,450,000 and $14,915,000 over the final two years of the agreement.

The Cardinals would take on $22.6 million of dead money and create $8.15 million of cap space by trading him.

In 2022, Hopkins appeared in nine games for the Cardinals and caught 64 passes for 717 yards receiving and three touchdowns.

We’ll have more on Hopkins as the news is available.