Bill O’Brien traded DeAndre Hopkins to the Arizona Cardinals for peanuts on Monday, and the NFL world is struggling to make sense of it.
“It’s disgusting,” NFL insider Benjamin Allbright said on After Hours with Amy Lawrence. “It’s a terrible trade. It’s not the first time Bill O’Brien has made a terrible trade. If you go back and look at the trades they made last year, somehow Bill O’Brien has had Jadeveon Clowney and DeAndre Hopkins and managed to come away with no first-round picks for either one of them. You go back and look last year, he got robbed, dusted himself off, got robbed again back in August and then he comes back to the drawing board and gets robbed a third time going up against the Arizona Cardinals.”
O’Brien traded Hopkins and a 2020 fourth-round pick to Arizona for David Johnson, a 2020 second-round pick, and a 2021 fourth-round pick.
Hours later, he signed Randall Cobb to a three-year deal worth $27 million, including $18.75 million guaranteed. Cobb, who has battled injuries throughout his career, turns 30 in August.
“He replaces Nuk Hopkins by overpaying the washed-up carcass of Randall Cobb,” Allbright said. “At the end of the day, the Houston Texans have been a laughingstock on social media. If Bill O’Brien actually wins with this group of players, we’ve got to give him Coach of the Year.”
It’s possible, however, that O’Brien has already lost the locker room. Several players were unhappy that he traded Hopkins, who averaged 105 catches for 1,371 yards and 10.3 touchdowns over the last three seasons.
“I know some guys in that locker room were pretty upset,” Allbright said. “I talked to them [Monday] briefly. They liked Hopkins a lot. He was a leader in that locker room. He and Bill O’Brien didn’t get along, but Nuk and the players all did.”
Without Hopkins, Deshaun Watson’s future in Houston is very much in doubt.
“If you’re Deshaun Watson, you got to consider your options,” Allbright said. “Are you a guy that wants to continue playing for this franchise that continues to hang you out to dry? If I’m Deshaun Watson, I don’t know if I’m ever going to re-sign with the Houston Texans. I might tell them that upfront.”