Making Sense of Hopkins Trade

To start off, in no way am I huge fan of Bill O’Brien and support the choices he has made, including this one, but I am also not about giving up on a franchise I have been a die hard fan for over 10 years now because of a series of questionable moves. However, after thinking the trade over last couple days, I think I found an understanding that I’d thought I’d share.

It was a known fact that Hopkins was looking to restructure his already current deal, which was three years left at $14M a year, and get a new contract. There were rumors that Hopkins was going to hold out if he didn’t get a new one this offseason, and once DHop opened up negotiations again with the Texans, they came to the conclusion that a restructured contract of his asking price of $20M per year was something they couldn’t come to an agreement on, which allowed the Texans to quietly seek a trade. Now this is a opposing/interested GM’s nightmare, they now would have to give up draft picks, ideally first rounders, a player/player options, and then RESTRUCTURE DHops contract. You are taking on a lot of risk and restructuring a contract is something a GM wants no part of as an organization. Atlas though, the Texans put feelers out there and received negative feedback from teams such as Eagles and Patriots about trading for DHop and their options all the sudden became slim. They didn’t want to lose out on getting any sort of return out of DHop because he was ultimately going to hold out, so they decided to act quickly and find an offer for him that could be a lesser blow to them then having DHop sit out and demand a new contract when we all know they have to pay Watson and Tunsil big money this upcoming offseason and next summer.

So the Cardinals put a trade out there with what the package is and Texans found this may have been the best option that they could’ve received based on the circumstances. Do I think they pulled the trigger too soon? Absolutely. But who knows what else they could’ve gotten.

We still have a young WR core outside of Cobb, three STUD tight ends, and we can look forward to this upcoming draft to see if we can snag new young talent. Don’t give up on the team just yet, they have things in place to compete for success and I am eager to see what can happen this year 💪🤘