Cardinals Cut DeAndre Hopkins

it's possible he's still very good, but I wouldn't cite last season's DVOA to support that argument.

I tried to be objective, can't deny his 2022 DYAR or DVOA to force some argument. Barnwell wrote on ESPN that Hopkins last year was 17th among all WRs in yards per route run:

What went wrong: The Cardinals didn't get any return for Hopkins. We're only a year removed from Davante Adams and Tyreek Hill landing their respective former franchises first-round picks and additional selections in trades. Hopkins is 30 and coming off a season in which he was suspended six games for violating the league's policy on performance-enhancing drugs, but he posted a 64-717-3 line in nine games after returning, finishing 17th in yards per route run.

I don't see how you can deny that the Texans 'won' the DeAndre trade.

They got a 2nd Round draft choice for a guy who wanted both OUT!!! and a humongous contract from whomever the Texans traded him to. A contract he has not lived up to.

Just amazing how you folks so often forget that the NFL stands for Not For Long despite so much and so continual evidence that it is indeed so.

The Bears don't know what QB Fields can do because they had no reliable WRs for 2 years. That is the narrative. Do Panthers, Colts and Texans have such WRs for their rookie QBs? If nothing else, Hopkins is a reliable pro.

The Panthers' wide receiver room consists of 2021 second-rounder Terrace Marshall; 2nd-round rookie Jonathan Mingo; free-agent pickups Adam Thielen, DJ Chark, and Laviska Shenault; tight end Hayden Hurst; and then mostly a bunch of guys you've never heard of. They have four legitimate rotation receivers and a tight end who can catch, but they'd all be second options at best on a better team. The Panthers would love peak Hopkins, but it's debatable whether that's worth taking an expensive gamble on him when they could get a breakthrough from Marshall or a really good rookie season from Mingo.

The Colts are in better shape. Michael Pittman is a legitimate #1, Alec Pierce and Jelani Woods had good rookie seasons they can hopefully build on, and Isaiah McKenzie and rookie Josh Downs competing for the slot position. IMO the Colts are probably best off letting their youngsters play and build chemistry with Anthony Richardson.

The Texans would absolutely benefit from adding Hopkins, their receiver room is Carolina's but somehow worse and with less potential upside. Nico Collins has shown flashes but little substance; rookie Tank Dell and basically-a-rookie John Metchie figure to take lots of snaps; Robert Woods may be cooked; and when Dalton Schultz is your most dangerous receiver Hopkins becomes basically their bet guy the minute he steps into the room, even at his recent level of play.

And the 2nd rounder they got turned into Ross Blacklock, who started 3 games for then but is not longer employed by them. Cardinals traded for Nuk with 3 years remaining on his contract. He played 3 years and made a pro bowl. 

Texans shouldn't be given brownie points for somehow knowing he'd miss games. 

That was Vikings trading for a QB in a state of emergency. Beginning of year, September, they had no QB. Bridgewater got injured in training on August 30th!

It's better to be lucky than good in these things. Eagles drafted Wentz and Bradford would be a backup or a placeholder for a few weeks. Probably no team wanted Bradford (otherwise they would have traded Bradford away during that offseason) and Eagles got more for him than Packers for Favre or Rodgers.

Next year they would get Foles back and he would be Super Bowl MVP. This story would be nuts even for Hollywood. 

I didn't say there had never been another lose-lose trade in history.

I didn't think you did this. I mentioned other such trades in a separate post, not a direct reply to you, in hope other people would write more about such trades. And a reminder that only after a few years they can be assessed properly. Usually when something happens, people react immediately and forget about it in a month...

Unusual enough to be casually noted as such.

I agree with this. For example after a year T. Hill-trade looks like a win-win, and D. Adams-trade like a lose-lose. After a few years, who knows what it will be.

I didn't disagree with you or mean anything contrarian or bad. It just shows how difficult it is for people to understand each other's tone here. Every sentence would have to include "i agree" or "i disagree" or not reply to anyone. When i reply to someone i am usually somewhere half-way between "agree" and "disagree" and am interested in a conversation. I don't write any other posts anywhere on internet... and don't talk about the NFL with anyone ever.

Judging the Rg3 trade, ex ante, is one of the most fascinating discussion points. Forget Rg3's name for a second and just evaluate it as a top prospect QB that isn't considered a reach drafting him 1st or 2nd overall. Is that kind of player worth 3 first rounders, especially if you don't have a proven solution at QB?

The Rams, in some sense, were like the Bears this year. Both had first round QBs, but neither could be properly evaluated because of injuries or supporting casts. So the Rams, like the Bears, decided to punt on the QB and go the other route. Was that the right decision?

IMO, and I am saying this without the benefit of hindsight, I think both the Rams and Bears made a mistake. 

The RGIII trade wasn't a loss for the Rams.  They got a slew of draft picks.

This is true if you only look at the trade, the picks exchanged. Like with any transaction, a trade up is a "loss", and a trade down is a "win" because it nets more draft picks, more opportunities to draft and develop good players. In that sense the Rams had a big "win" in RGIII-trade and a big "loss" in Goff-trade.

What i wrote, that RGIII-trade was a loss-loss, was looking at results only.

Its still an interesting peak into his thinking; even if its ex post rationalization. We make a lot of assumptions about what these guys are thinking. 

I think he's full of it too, but plenty of posters here love to bloviate about draft slot and positional value, and would probably agree about letting a future HOF DT slide to 13 because he's a DT and they aren't worth that much.

In my opinion the best thing Snead did for Rams was the 2012 RGIII-trade. I don't think any college player is a "sure thing" enough to be worth 3 1st round picks+ 2nd rounder. Not even Luck. There is always a risk, an injury one if nothing else. (I think the same of this year's Panthers trade to No. 1 pick)

Let me turn it around and ask if the Panthers had had the first overall pick in this most recent draft and someone had offered 3 first rounders for it, should they have made that deal? Remember, their QB room prior to the trade was Andy Dalton and Matt Corral. 

In a sense, the Browns kind of did that in the Wentz deal and got almost universally ripped for it once Wentz played like an MVP in his second year. Also note, that Browns team inevitably circled the drain and landed right back into the number 1 pick in back to back years. Should they have continued this cycle of trading the pick for three firsts? I suppose in some theoretical vacuum, its the right thing to do. But from a career perspective for everyone involved but the owner of the team; I don't think you can justify that decision. 

The two times I've seen a front office embark on a naked tank job(Cleveland Browns, 76ers); the coach and the gm got fired and never got to actually play out the fruits of all that losing. 

Sure, Titans and Patriots are interested.

If i understand Schatz's tweet, he is saying traditional DVOA wasn't precise about Hopkins in 2022. Hopkins is better than that and Schatz is looking to tweak DVOA for WRs. This is very rare. Or Schatz is "going against DVOA" with his opinion, even rarer.

This would mean Hopkins is still great and all teams looking for such WR1 play or top WR2 (probably a cheap contract for Hopkins now in June) should line up for Hopkins' services for a year or two. 32 teams don't have 2 WRs better/much cheaper than Hopkins.

Here is a list what teams have spent this offseason on low-supply of WRs:

https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/free-agents/wide-receiver/

Hopkins will be probably for 1 year in $5-7M range, like Chark, Hardman, Slayton. Less than Lazard, Beckham, Thielen, Woods...

I wrote comment #78 about teams building their pass offense in general, regardless of Hopkins. I hope someone might write what are these 10 teams doing, what is their strategy (exceptions Patriots and Broncos). Rams and Cardinals are having a fire sale despite having expensive QBs. It looks to me that 5 other teams have the same plan: rookie 1st round QB and rookie or de facto rookie 2nd rounder as WR1. Other WRs also very young and unproven. The Bears did this for last 2 years. If there will be problems with offense, how will they know what is the problem: QB, pass catchers or playcalling? Those 5 are Texans, Colts, Titans, Panthers, Packers. Titans have 1st rounder WR1 and high 2nd rounder QB. One Panthers' fan wrote above what Panthers are doing. They have 2 2nd rounders at WR + old Thielen as a mentor. Thielen has lost some steps. What is the probability that strategy of these 5 teams will fail based on draft history of WRs and QBs? 70-80%? Higher than that? (Panthers have the best success chances at 30-40%. They don't have a proven WR1, so it's closer to 30%.) Jaguars also had this problem when Lawrence was a rookie. Packers are a good organization, at least they will lean on run game and Shanaclan scheme by LaFleur. 

On the other end of the Barnwell's list are 49ers: they also have 2 de facto rookie QBs, but they have the best set of proven pass catchers beyond any doubt. If there will be any problems with pass offense, 49ers will know the cause and be able to act. They had a lot of problems before Shanahan, they don't have a proven "franchise QB", but their strategy of roster construction seems much better to me. Not perfect, but better.

Who knows, btw, what Hopkins wants. If it turns out he wants a relatively large contract and multiple years

About this i wrote #76 and have nothing to add. No team wants to sign him for this. It will be cheap 1 year, maybe 2nd year team option or remain unemployed. I disagree with this, but my opinion doesn't matter.

if you aren't under a win now mandate

I would like to get an idea what people think about these rebuiding processes. Anyone can comment: how long does this last? When does it transition to win-something-mandate? 2 years? After losing for longer than that, usually coaches and some GMs are fired... How long are fans ok with this? Isn't this the main problem of roster construction: GMs want to "have their guy" at coach and QB, are doing a teardown in Year 1, than in Year 2 are drafting/developing and in Year 3 they have to win so they make bad decisions and are fired after that and the cycle continues: Browns, Jets, Bills for decades. 

There is an annual article here about snap-weighted age of players in the NFL. They are young and careers are short. Lions and Chiefs at 25.3 years were young in 2022 and Saints and Patriots old at 27.3 years. So how long should a turnaround of team's fortunes last? 1 good draft? 2 or 3 years? After 4 years some players are retiring, some declining, some free agents... How long does a good or a bad team last? The Browns went from 0-16 to a first playoff win after decades in just 3 years...  49ers went from Super Bowl contention to disaster after Harbaugh left...

I openly acknowledge, it is a bad idea. Although, living in California and being an avid skier, it allows you to stomach long car rides. And formerly living in Los Angeles, it lets you stomach traffic. And having been to India many times, you get a stomach for the worst sense of overcrowding thab any place on the planet.

I wonder if you could be so kind as to recommend local places to eat in the following cities:

Rome, Firenze, Bologna, Parma, Venice, Capri/Sorrento, Sienna, and Milano