Arizona Cardinals wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins has announced that he will continue to fight his suspension having been penalised for breaking the league’s performance-enhancing substance policy.
DeAndre Hopkins has in recent years emerged as one of the best wide receivers in the National Football League, with his performances for the Houston Texans putting him into the category of ‘elite’ performer.
In his nine seasons in the NFL so far, the first seven of which were for the Texans and the most recent two for the Arizona Cardinals, he has put up 11,027 receiving yards across the regular and post-season whilst hauling in 69 touchdowns. Those numbers include an impressive six seasons of over 1,000 receiving yards whilst also leading the league in touchdowns in 2017 when he caught 13.Â
However, despite these impressive numbers, the Texans decided to move on from him after the 2019 season in a move that left many people stunned that they would be willing to let him go. He has continued to impress with the Cardinals, with 1,407 receiving yards in his first year and 572 in an injury-plagued second.
Things get rocked further
Whilst he might have been hoping to come back in 2022 with a vengeance, the league had other ideas as it was announced back in May that Hopkins would be suspended for the first six games of the season after producing “a positive test result for a prohibited substance plus a diuretic or masking agent/attempt to substitute, dilute or adulterate a specimen/attempt to manipulate a test resultâ€, with Hopkins admitting on Twitter that he was “confused and shocked†at the result:
This news has partly been attributed to the Cardinals’ trade for Marquise Brown this offseason, perhaps they didn’t want to be without a star receiver for that long into the year and made the move to ensure they didn’t skip a beat.
But despite withdrawing his appeal when the suspension first arrived, Hopkins is continuing to try and find a way to get back on the field.
What’s he doing?
Speaking to the media at a local charity event, Hopkins claims that the amount in his system was minimal and was therefore a contamination rather than anything that came out of his body and that he is fighting to get the suspension reduced:
If he’s able to, then that will serve as a massive boost for the Cardinals, with him on one side of the field and Brown on the other to go along with A.J Green, they’re putting together a very nice crew of offensive weapons for quarterback Kyler Murray and the longer that they’re able to work together, the better chance they have of becoming a force in the NFL.