Expect team to pay price for this deal
Before I run off into the weeds of the NFL rumor mill, let me open with what William Shakespeare might say about the Texans’ DeAndre Hopkins:
“Payeth yond sir his prop’r wage.”
But that’s not the Texans’ way.
They would rather do worse than do right.
Monday morning, they traded Hopkins and a fourth-round pick to the Cardinals for running back David Johnson and a second-round choice this year and a fourth next year.
The Texans traded one of their best players — their only player who is the best at his position in the league — simply because they didn’t want to pay him what he is worth.
Now they will spend the next
few years, perhaps longer, desperately searching for a comparable replacement.
Trading superstar players in their prime is not the best way to improve a team. (Unless his name is Herschel Walker.)
The rumor that the Texans would trade Hopkins had been floating around for some time. I first heard it from a source in January, right after the Texans embarrassed themselves in a playoff loss to Kansas City. Soon after, a journalist friend said he heard it from an agent that Bill Belichick was expecting Hopkins to be available this offseason, with a caveat.
(FYI: That so-called Belichick caveat has been erased with the Bengals putting a franchise tag on A.J. Green.)
The rumor was so hot that I ran that by a couple people and they were planning to run it by me.
Funny thing about NFL rumors: More of them are true than fans would believe.
Half the year (from the opening of camp through the Super Bowl) is NFL football, the other half of the year is the NFL soap opera.
Typically, I don’t write about rumors, because, as Timex Social Cub so eloquently, and rhythmically, put it, such talk is often started by jealous people.
“They get mad seein' somethin' they had and somebody else is holdin'”
The Texans were holdin’ Hopkins, the best wide receiver in the game. Every team in the NFL would love to have him.
Well, other than the one that plays next to the Astrodome.
What do the Texans know that everybody else doesn’t?
Not a damn thing. As diva-free as Hopkins tends to be, especially compared to the majority of top-flight wideouts, he is demanding. Word is Bill O’Brien isn’t crazy about that.
Hopkins is a hard-core competitor, who puts winning above all else.
But, understandably, he recognizes his role in the Texans’ success.
He isn’t quiet. He just doesn’t play many media games or go out of his way to draw attention to himself. He will tell his coaches and teammates what he thinks.
He isn’t above taking a “Give me the damn ball” stance when he knows that makes the most sense, but he isn’t childish about it.
Why would a difference-maker stand by and let his team lose without taking advantage of his skills?
Hopkins is a great, not good, football player.
Hopkins signed for the
highest guarantee for a wide receiver in NFL history in 2017 ($49 million), which assured him market value for three seasons.
But this is 2020. Times have changed.
Oh, Hopkins is seriously underpaid.
His salary of $12.5 million for next season, which will be fully guaranteed on Wednesday, is well below his on-the-field worth.
The franchise tag for receivers this year will be in the $18 million range. The Falcons’ Julio Jones averages $22 million a year. The Saints’ Michael Thomas is getting paid $19.25 million a season.
Since Hopkins came into the league in 2013, he has posted 632 catches for 8,602 yards with 54 touchdowns, each of which ranks among the top three.
More importantly, his teams have more wins in that time than all but one of the top receivers. Larry Fitzgerald and the Cardinals match Hopkins and the Texans with 110 wins.
The wise thing for the Texans to do would have been to payeth yond sir his prop’r wage, and erase all the trade talk.
Instead, they traded a guy who they won’t be able to replace adequately for years, if ever.
You don’t get better by getting worse, and a Texans team without Hopkins will be hard-pressed to be as good as one with him.