DeAndre Hopkins might find himself in a bit of a sticky situation finding a new team following his release by the Arizona Cardinals.
The Arizona Cardinals, despite reported attempts to try and trade away wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins over the course of the offseason, finally decided to just flat-out release the 30-year-old over the weekend to cut ties with him completely.
They do this despite the fact they are set to take on they are having to take on a $22.6m dead cap hit by moving on from him this way, perhaps a sign with how the Cardinals see this season going, that they’d rather eat the money and lose a very good player and look towards 2024 than look to do anything this season.
But whilst the Cardinals have moved on and are looking to the future, Hopkins himself hasn’t managed to get his future sorted out just yet, and according to a report from Mike Florio, he might still have a little bit of trouble in getting it sorted soon.
Teams hoping to avoid hot water over DeAndre Hopkins
According to Florio’s report on ProFootballTalk, teams around the league who may be interested in him are having to go a different way when it comes to getting in contact with him, for fear of getting in trouble with the National Football League:
As more players who technically represent themselves apparently use burner email accounts that their non-certified agents use to communicate directly with teams while posing as the player, some teams are deciding not to communicate with self-represented players via email.
Per a league source, multiple teams have been shying away from sending emails to and from receiver DeAndre Hopkins, given the possibility that they’ll be communicating not with Hopkins but with a non-certified agent who is pretending to be Hopkins. Instead, those teams insist on talking directly to Hopkins — and only Hopkins.
That doesn’t stop him from having someone else listen in, but the repeated warnings by the NFL to teams about talking to non-certified agents have resonated, at least with some teams.
The warning by the NFL that Florio is referring to was the memo sent out during the Lamar Jackson situation with the Baltimore Ravens, with teams probably thinking that Hopkins, whilst a good player, isn’t worth getting into trouble over for the sake of doing things the ‘wrong way’.
It doesn’t necessarily mean that teams are going to stop their attempts to try and get him, but it might be a little bit longer before a team is able to get in contact with him and make him an offer.