The Kansas City Chiefs were closer to executing a trade to acquire DeAndre Hopkins from the Arizona Cardinals than anyone ever realized. What exactly prevented the two sides from getting a deal done? Well, it was a deal for another receiver that the Chiefs had often been linked to.
According to Sports Illustrated’s Albert Breer, Kansas City and Buffalo were the only two teams to have “substantive” talks with Arizona. The biggest issue preventing a trade from happening in either situation was Hopkins’ contract, which is the challenge that was expected.
Breer says that the Chiefs made progress in that regard, but that progress was halted by Odell Beckham Jr.’s deal with the Baltimore Ravens in mid-April. When he received a $15M base salary for 2023, that became the floor for what Hopkins was searching for in a new deal.
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• The Chiefs and Bills were the only teams to have substantive trade talks with Arizona.
• As was the case with Kansas City, contract was the issue for Buffalo.
• KC made progress, but @OBJ's deal ($15M base) more or less blew that progress up.
— Albert Breer (@AlbertBreer) May 27, 2023
Beckham Jr.’s deal ultimately might be the issue that prevents Kansas City from signing Hopkins now that he’s set to become a free agent. He’ll likely be looking for a deal from a team that would pay him in a similar fashion. That could be a tough deal to find given that the Ravens seemed to be the only ones remotely interested in paying Beckham Jr. that much on a one-year deal.
