The Houston sports realm was shocked when reports emerged on March 16 that the Houston Texans were trading DeAndre Hopkins to the Arizona Cardinals.
However, don’t count the three-time All-Pro receiver himself as being surprised; Hopkins knew such a move was inevitable.
The new Cardinals wideout spoke with the Phoenix media on a conference call Friday and explained that there were rumors of his being traded as far back as the start of the 2019 season.
“I kind of heard the rumor talks about being traded really last year, at the beginning of last year,” Hopkins said via Bob McManaman of the Arizona Republic. “It wasn’t a big surprise to me. After the year, I was prepared for it.”
Hopkins’ intuition is spot on in retrospect. Around the trade deadline during the 2019 season, teams were calling about the former 2013 first-round pick from Clemson, even though he wasn’t on the trade block. Looking back, perhaps he was on the trade block, but the Texans couldn’t find a deal favorable enough to make the trade.
According to coach and general manager Bill O’Brien, part of the challenge in finding a trade partner for Hopkins was finding a team that would be willing to meet his new salary expectations.
“I’m not going to get into all the details of this, but you’re finding a trade partner, No. 1, that’s going to be able to pay DeAndre Hopkins,” O’Brien told the Houston media on a conference call on April 16. “That was a big part of it. Once we found that team that could afford DeAndre Hopkins in the future, now we then began to negotiate what the value of the trade was.”
The Cardinals were able to afford Hopkins, and they supplied the Texans with their 40th overall pick in the second around along with swapping their 2021 fourth-rounder for Houston’s 2020 fourth-rounder. The Texans also got former 2016 All-Pro running back David Johnson in the trade, who is excited to duplicate his career year in Houston.
