In a stunning move, the Houston Texans traded DeAndre Hopkins and a 2020 fourth-round pick to Arizona for David Johnson, a 2020 second-round pick, and a 2021 fourth-round pick.
What. In. The. World.
“I don’t want to say it was sort of long overdue,” NFL analyst Peter King said on Tiki & Tierney. “But I think the interesting thing is people didn’t really know when it happened today – everybody said, ‘Hey, DeAndre Hopkins has three years and $50 million left. That’s really reasonable for maybe the best receiver in football.’”
Hopkins, who turns 28 in June, averaged 105 catches for 1,371 yards and 10.3 touchdowns over the last three seasons.
“In all ways, he’s better than Julio Jones over the last three years,” King said. “But the problem was he wanted a new contract. There was a lot of question [about] whether he was going to play this year, whether he was going to come to camp. So that was part of it. When you look at the deal, the deal doesn’t make very much sense other than the fact that Bill O’Brien absolutely unequivocally was frothing for draft picks this year to start to rebuild his team, which he desperately needed to do.”
O’Brien, who became Texans general manager in January, was harshly criticized for the trade.
“Bill O’Brien has solidified himself atop this franchise,” King said. “In being now the coach and general manager of this team, he basically has tremendous power. . . Bill O’Brien has the power to pretty much do what he wants in this organization. That’s not going away any time soon.”