Arizona Cardinals wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins wasn’t traded on the first night of the 2023 NFL Draft, and it looks like he won’t be traded on Night 2 or Night 3 either.
Speaking after the first round of the draft on Thursday night, Cardinals first-year general manager Monti Ossenfort said the team does not plan to trade Hopkins during the draft at all.
“I don’t foresee that happening,” Ossenfort said via NFL.com. “I don’t know what is going to happen in the next couple of days, but right now, I don’t foresee that happening.”
Ossenfort also admitted that the Cardinals might not trade Hopkins at all before the 2023 season.
“DeAndre is a Cardinal,” Ossenfort said. “DeAndre is a Cardinal and we’re moving forward.”
Reports about a possible Hopkins trade aren’t new — he carries a $30.75 million cap hit in 2023 and his play has been declining so the Cardinals have reportedly been trying to move him for months — but they started gaining momentum over the past week as the draft neared.
But Hopkins ended up being an afterthought on draft night, with the Cardinals trading their No. 3 pick to the Houston Texans in exchange for the No. 12 and no. 33 picks in 2023. Then they traded back up to the No. 6 pick so they could draft offensive tackle Paris Johnson.
Hopkins, who will be 31 in June, was a first-round draft pick by the Texans in 2013, and matured into a standout with selections to the Pro Bowl and First Team All-Pro. He was traded to the Cardinals in 2020, which hasn’t worked out quite the way the team envisioned. He played in all 16 games in 2020, but in 2021 he played in only 10 due to some late season injuries. And in 2023 he appeared in only nine, the fewest of his 10-year career, when the NFL suspended him for six games after testing positive for a banned substance.
It’s easy to see why the Cards would have trouble trading an over-30 wide receiver with declining numbers, a recent PED suspension, and a $30 million cap hit. But it’s important to remember when Indianapolis Colts GM Chris Ballard recently said about the NFL Draft: “Everybody’s lying.” Ossenfort says he doesn’t foresee trading Hopkins, but the draft is a wild and unpredictable beast. We won’t know what’s what until it’s all over.