Steelers Miss Out on Yet Another Wide Receiver Trade
The Pittsburgh Steelers missed out on yet another wide receiver, with the Kanas City Chiefs landing veteran DeAndre Hopkins.
The Pittsburgh Steelers have missed out on yet another potential wide receiver trade target, and this time around, Omar Khan didn’t even seem to show much interest. The Tennessee Titans have a deal in place to trade veteran wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins to the Kansas City Chiefs, according to a report early on Wednesday morning by Adam Schefter of ESPN.
Hopkins had said that he wanted to stay in Tennessee, and the Titans have little depth behind him with former first-round draft pick Treylon Burks on the injured reserve list, but they made the move, anyway, and didn’t even get a premium return for the five-time All-Pro
The Titans will get just a conditional fourth-round draft pick from Kansas City for Hopkins, Schefter reports.
The Steelers were heavily involved in the last two big-name receivers to hit the trade market, nearly missing on San Francisco 49ers star Brandon Aiyuk before he re-signed with San Fran at the start of the season.
Last week, the Las Vegas Raiders sent Davante Adams to the New York Jets, who paid a conditional second/third-round pick to reunite Adams with quarterback Aaron Rodgers.
This time around, there was no smoke at all connecting the Steelers and Hopkins, or really anyone. Hopkins had said that he wanted to remain in Tennessee, and the Titans have little else around him at wide receiver.
“I love my life. I love where I am,” Hopkins said last week.
The Chiefs, along with the Steelers, have been one of the most wide receiver-needy teams in the NFL, especially since Kansas City lost Rashee Rice for the season to knee and hamstring injuries early this month.
Hopkins is in the final season of a two-year, $26 million contract with Tennessee. He is owed the remainder of $8.27 million annual salary, $1.02 million in per-game roster bonuses and has $2.35 million in likely-to-be-earned incentives.
The 32-year-old spent the first seven seasons of his career with the Houston Texans, where he was a first-round pick out of Clemson in the 2013 NFL Draft. He was traded to the Arizona Cardinals in 2020 and played three seasons there before joining the Titans as a free agent.
The 6-foot-1, 218-pound Hopkins is a five-time All-Pro, five-time Pro Bowler and led the NFL in touchdowns in 2017. He has slowed some in recent years, and was limited to 10 games in 2021 and nine games in 2022 with injuries, but when he played a full season with the Titans last year, he posed 1,057 yards on 75 catches — a 14.1 yards per reception average, and also scored seven touchdowns.
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