DeAndre Hopkins Throws Shade at Cardinals

ARIZONA — Professional football player or not, it’s human nature to wonder if the grass is actually greener elsewhere.

In his own words, former Arizona Cardinals wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins believes that to be the case with the Tennessee Titans as year two with the organization approaches:

“I love Tennessee. I love what Miss Amy (Adams Strunk, the Titans owner) is doing,” Hopkins told The Tennessean’s Nick Gray. “I think this is the happiest I’ve been in any organization, so I’ll just let that speak for itself.”

Hopkins was released by the Cardinals last summer after months of trade speculation with the Cardinals. New general manager Monti Ossenfort made the decision to cut Hopkins and wipe the slate clean, allowing the former Houston Texans star to hit the open market while getting his salary completely off the books in 2024 by absorbing all of the $22.6 million cap hit last season.

Hopkins visited with a handful of Super Bowl contenders before inking a two-year, $26 million deal with the Titans before the start of last season. He caught 75 passes for 1,057 yards and seven touchdowns.

Hopkins’ tenure in the desert could be viewed in a few different lights. On one hand, the Cardinals did get strong production out of their star wideout with some exciting memories attached. Arizona needed another prominent pass catcher for Kyler Murray, and more times than not, Hopkins rose to the occasion.

On the other, Hopkins played just 19 games his final two years in the desert and was notably suspended for PED use, something he wholeheartedly denied both during and after the suspension.

There were also reports he sat out the final two games of the 2022 despite being healthy. In the months leading up to his release, Hopkins was extremely impartial on wanting to remain in Arizona in podcasts and on social media.

Not all the shade was directed at Arizona, however. The Texans traded him for scraps ahead of the 2020 season, a move that’s still discussed in low light to this day.

When asked about Hopkins’ contract, Titans GM Ran Carthon offered this:

“He’s one of the guys that’s on our team, and we’ve talked about a number of guys on the team to have those conversations,” Carthon said.

“One thing I appreciate about D Hop is, if you guys have gotten to know him, D Hop is straight forward and D Hop and I, we can have some straightforward conversations, and we have and we do. And so D Hop knows how we feel about him, and I think that’s a big thing, especially for a veteran at this stage of his career.

“I think the way he’s shown up here, the way he’s bought into a new staff, kind of shows how he feels about us and what we have going.”

If Hopkins is as happy as he says he is, he could very well stick around with the Titans.