ESPN analyst: DeAndre Hopkins 'spicy missing piece' for Cowboys offense

ESPN reporter Jeremy Fowler made his case for the Dallas Cowboys landing wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins in free agency following his release from the Arizona Cardinals last week. According to Fowler, Hopkins is the missing piece for the Cowboys’ offense. The question remains, how much would Dallas be willing to pay to land the former Texans star?

“This is already an elite playoff team,” Fowler said on Get Up. “They can win and get into the playoffs. This would be a spicy missing piece for Jerry Jones and Mike McCarthy. It just makes a lot of sense.

“CeeDee Lamb is clearly the No. 1 option, Dak Prescott just needs a little more. You’ve got Brandin Cooks as that vertical threat, now you need a guy who can play inside and out. Prescott needs to limit turnovers, Hopkins would help.”

The 31-year-old wideout had 64 receptions for 717 yards and three touchdowns in 2022. He’s surpassed 1,0000 receiving yards in six seasons so far in his career.

Although Hopkins could obviously provide additional support for Prescott, it seems the Cowboys would only be willing to do it if they don’t like what they’re seeing from the current receivers behind Lamb and Cooks.

Michael Gallup is back to feeling 100% and Mike McCarthy intends to expand his role this year. Besides Gallup, the Cowboys have to evaluate the potential growth of younger receivers like Jalen Tolbert, Dennis Houston and Simi Fehoko.

Cardinals fail to find trade for Hopkins

According to NFL insider Ian Rapoport, the Cardinals worked hard to find a trade partner for Hopkins but ultimately couldn’t. Instead, they took a $22.6 dead cap hit to move on.

“To me, it didn’t seem like an outcome at all,” Rapoport said on the Pat McAfee Show. “They had trade talks all the way through to the draft, up until Wednesday night. Before the draft, I thought he was going to get traded. The contract… he obviously wasn’t going to get paid the $19.5 million… he was willing to take less, an incentive-laden deal…

“Von Miller has come on to talk about his recruitment to the Bills, Kansas City was a potential option there, Ravens perhaps, a lot of teams have been interested in the last couple of months. There was talk of the Cardinals eating money… at some point, they said, ‘We have tried everything to trade him, we cannot trade him.’”