Wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins negotiated the majority of his new contract with the Arizona Cardinals himself. The new two-year extension supplants the three remaining years he had on his existing deal to total a five-year agreement worth up to $94 million with a voidable fifth year.
Hopkins took control of his contractual future because he saw the chance to negotiate a deal as on-the-job training for what he wants to do when his playing days come to an end.
“It’s ownership and me believing in myself and my abilities to study the terminology of contracts, me knowing where I want to be after football, so why not?” Hopkins said, via Howard Balzer of SI.com. “I know that one day I want to be part of an organization to help build it, so I felt like this was a good time to learn and study everything that hopefully one day I’ll be doing.
“I think also just showing other players that you can get things done yourself if you believe in yourself and have the right team around you. Agents are great. There is no knock on agents or nothing against the agent that I had previously (Todd France). There was no bad ties with them and it was just something I wanted to do myself.”
Seattle Seahawks linebacker Bobby Wagner, Houston Texans tackle Laremy Tunsil and San Francisco 49ers cornerback Richard Sherman have all run point on their own contract negotiations in recent years. Like those players, Hopkins had advisors help him through the process with some of the details of contract terminology and such.
“It was a lot of reading, a lot of nights staying up late learning the language and terminology of everything,” Hopkins said. “My advisors, my team that I had, those guys were with me and have been with me for years now. And they’re not just advisors, but also family and mentors to me ... It’s a small group of people, but we knew that this is what we wanted to do going forward. And we made it happen.”