The Arizona Cardinals were believed to have gotten a steal with their trade to acquire receiver DeAndre Hopkins from the Houston Texans. There is apparently a reason for that. He wanted to redo his deal and was planning on a holdout if he didn’t get it, according to ESPN’s Dianna Russini.
After the Texans agreed to trade DeAndre Hopkins, sources told me Hopkins' reps told the Texans weeks prior he wanted a new deal paying him somewhere between $18- $20mil per year. The team was told Hopkins wouldn't show, if he didn't get the deal. Houston moved forward with trade
— Dianna (@diannaESPN) March 18, 2020
Hopkins has three years remaining on his current deal, a five-year, $81 million contract he signed in 2017. However, he has no guarantees remaining in his deal and will make $12.5 million in 2020, $13.5 million in 2021 and $13.9 million in 2022.
It will be interesting to see if Hopkins will insist on a new contract from the Cardinals before he reports. He has been a first-team All-Pro each of the last three seasons and has had over 95 catches each of the last three years and over 100 in two of them.
He sees Amari Cooper get a five-year, $100 million deal and would like to be paid like that.
It would be a new practice for the Cardinals to renegotiate a contract with three years remaining, but it wasn’t a contract they gave him initially, so perhaps they will make an exception.
Of course, they could simply throw some guarantees in there for now or pay him some up front and then redo his deal next offseason when there are two years remaining.
We will how this plays out in the offseason for the Cardinals.
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Ep. 261
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Ep. 260
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