Cardinals WR DeAndre Hopkins Not With Team For Voluntary OTAs

Per Darren Urban of the team website, Cardinals WR DeAndre Hopkins is not in Arizona with the team for the start of voluntary OTAs. 

.@AZCardinals WR DeAndre Hopkins isn't at voluntary OTAs, saying on the @IAMATHLETEpod he's in Toronto working on his body.

Hop didn't say a lot concrete about his football future, other than his recent IG video in Phoenix didn't mean he was staying: https://t.co/1ETMrRO7fM

— Darren Urban (@Cardschatter) May 22, 2023

Instead, Hopkins is currently in Toronto, Canada, working out and “getting my body examined,” per his comments on the I Am Athlete podcast. 

Hopkins posted a video on social media recently of him working out in Phoenix and pointing out he never said he wanted to leave Arizona. The Cardinals gave him and his agent permission to seek a trade earlier this offseason but nothing has materialized so far. 

In his appearance on the podcast, Hopkins said the video wasn’t intended to be a statement about playing for the Cardinals this season. 

“Phoenix is home,” Hopkins said. “It’s where I have been the last three years. … Working out there, there’s no emphasis other than that’s where I live. It’s not me going on a campaign. It’s just me working out.”

Hopkins’ status remains in limbo ahead of the 2023 season. No team has currently been willing to trade for him at his scheduled salary of $19.45 million and Hopkins appears to have been unwilling to accept too much of a pay cut to facilitate a deal.

The Cardinals also don’t want to eat any money in the deal and were asking for a second-round pick at one point. 

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.

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.