Arizona Cardinals get it right with Hopkins' release

Once again, Arizona Cardinals general manager Monti Ossenfort goes the counterintuitive route, and once again, he is correct!

It’s going to be a polarizing day for fans of the Arizona Cardinals. One camp will be in full support of this move, while the other will have nothing but awful things to say about it. 

But at the end of the day, general manager Monti Ossenfort made the right move. No, it wasn’t the ideal move, but when it became clear he couldn’t get anything he deemed worthwhile for Hopkins, Ossenfort did what was right, and he cut ties with the longtime star receiver. 

Why was this correct? For one, Hopkins was part of the old Steve Keim era, and for another, he was making it clear that he was uninterested in playing in the desert and being part of another rebuild. If that wasn’t the case, he’d have shown up to the offseason program. 

So why keep a guy who’s not interested in playing for you, especially when you have a cluster of young receivers willing to suit up for your team? Or pass-catchers, really. Guys like Marquise Brown, Trey McBride, Michael Wilson, Zach Pascal, Greg Dortch, and Rondale Moore aren’t a group that will scare an opponent, but there is a lot of talent there, nonetheless. 

Arizona Cardinals get it right with Hopkins’ release

In short, Hopkins’ release was a statement, and a valid one at that. For one, it indicates that the new staff is, regardless of what’s said in front of the cameras, only interested in guys who want to be in the desert. 

And for another, it shows us that they want an influx of youth. Hopkins, who will turn 31 before the 2023 season begins, is heading into his 11th season on a team looking to get younger. So in short, there was no reason to keep him for that reason alone. 

This release tells us that Ossenfort and Gannon further want to bring in their own players, even if the roster is still full of Steve Keim guys at the moment since this is the first year of the rebuild. But nonetheless, despite the $22.6 million dead cap hit, it was the right move. 

Get younger on both sides of the ball, bring in your own players, set the foundation, then build. Hopkins did not fit the criteria. He was too old, he was a Keim guy, and he’s not the type of player interested in setting a foundation. Releasing him was the right move, and I say that with confidence.

Source: Arizona Cardinals release DeAndre Hopkins by Tyler Drake, ArizonaSports.com