Trading DeAndre Hopkins could signal the end of the Bill O’Brien Era
What. Just. Happened.
Sitting in my classroom grading papers, I started seeing updates about a trade involving David Johnson.
Interesting! Johnson’s skills are on the decline and his last productive season was in 2016, but maybe they took a cheap flier on him hoping he’ll find his former elite ways. Heck, maybe even Arizona would pay off some of his big contract money to help sweeten the deal!
Then things started to get weird.
Okay…so not as great for Houston. He’s expensive for a guy that very well could be a replacement-level back. But hey, maybe a risk worth taking?
HOLD EVERYTHING. What?! They either got a boatload of picks that haven’t been announced yet, or Hopkins just had his hands bitten off by an alligator back home in South Carolina. That’s the only way Johnson is worth him in a trade, and even then I still might bet on Hopkins ability to catch using his elbows over Johnson’s remaining career.
But, of course, the worst hadn’t come yet.
…
Oh, Bill O’Brien. What on earth have you done.
Other than the mutiny that is currently brewing in Houston to overthrow the O’Brien regime, the scariest thing about this trade is what seemed to be O’Brien’s reasoning for trading Hopkins; he wanted a new contract. Which, of course, is pretty standard once you become one of the best players in the NFL, especially at a premium position like wide-out. For a playoff team with the emerging Deshaun Watson as it’s star QB, having a player like “Nuk” who can make ridiculous plays look easy, catch anything within a square mile of his body and bail a young QB out of huge mistakes is imperative. This is a monumentally disastrous trade that could have serious ramifications on O’Brien’s job security and the future of the Texans.
There are zero excuses for the lack of return O’Brien got for Hopkins. Last spring’s blockbuster trade involving Odell Beckham Jr. proves as much; that deal should have been the baseline for a Hopkins deal. Cleveland sent their 2019 1st and 3rd round picks along with starting safety Jabrill Peppers to get Odell, a deal that was widely panned by the media as a bad move for New York.
It still is, by the way. Just imagine how much smoother Daniel Jones’ rookie season could have gone if Beckham Jr. was running routes for him. But this week, Dave Gettleman can rest assured that he no longer owns the worst trade of a superstar receiver in recent memory (that’s without even mentioning the whole cutting Steve Smith Sr. debacle). Bill O’Brien has snatched that title away with veritable force.
Hopkins’ trade value should have been significantly higher than a replacement level running back, a second round pick and a fourth round pick swap. He has been more productive and more consistent than Beckham over the past few seasons, rarely missing time due to injury and almost never suffering a bad week. He has no off-field concerns, unlike Odell. He is also one of a small handful of receivers with a claim as the best in the world right now; a throne room that is shared exclusively by Prince Julio Jones and the reigning King, His Majesty Michael Thomas. Awesome company to be in.
David Johnson has no such claim to anything like that. In fact, the only throne he has a rightful claim to now is as the biggest fantasy football bust of the past few seasons. Not all of that is his fault; injuries wiped out his 2017 year, 2018 looked like a recovery year and 2019 saw him trying to adjust to a new offense, a rookie QB and still his own recovery. However it certainly appears that he has lost a crucial step or two that helped him look so special in 2016, when he exploded on the scene with 1,243 rushing yards, 840 receiving yards and 20 total touchdowns. But even in his breakout year, he only averaged 4.2 yards per carry; good, but not elite. That number hasn’t risen above 3.7 since then. That trend combined with his age is troubling, but it only gets worse by taking a look at what remains of the Texans roster.
Johnson most likely profiles as a good receiver out of the backfield and an average to below average runner. The problem with that? That sentence could apply to TWO players on the Texans; David Johnson or Duke Johnson. That’s right everyone; the Texans already HAD David Johnson! Well, essentially at least. The latter cost Houston a 3rd round selection to nab him from Cleveland, a move that already looked bad halfway through last season when Carlos Hyde instead took over and put up good numbers while costing pennies compared to Duke.
If anything, Hyde should have proven to the Texans that cheap production from the running back position was not only feasible, but a smart move to help free up assets for other positions of need. After last season flamed out spectacularly in the second round of the playoffs due to a horrific collapse in Kansas City, that should have been the primary focus for Houston going into the offseason.
Bill O’Brien now had better hope that his despicable trade doesn’t come back to haunt him to the fullest extent that it very well could. Even if he manages to get good value from the draft selections, and even if David Johnson pans out in Houston and returns to his 2016 form, O’Brien massively underestimated the value of Hopkins in this deal, compromising Houston’s ability for future improvement. He is at risk of:
- David Johnson flopping yet again AND paying him the full $10.2 million this season to do so,
- Further pushing Duke Johnson out of the lineup and losing more value on that deal,
- Gutting a receiving core that already had severe holes (Will Fuller is a special talent, but he can’t stay healthy; Kenny Stills is simply not a WR1; Keke Coutee has potential but is not nearly in the same ballpark as Hopkins),
- And perhaps worst, wasting Deshaun Watson’s prime years by taking his best weapons away from him without effectively replacing them.
O’Brien’s safety net had already started to show signs of wear and tear prior to this move. Concerns following last year’s questionable trades involving Laremy Tunsil, Jadeveon Clowney and Duke Johnson that hamstrung their future made media and fans nervous, but also curious to see how the team would respond now that they were “all in.” Following a decent but ultimately underwhelming season culminating in that humiliating loss to the Chiefs, O’Brien’s seat started feeling warmer. Call it the blessing and curse of having an elite young QB; expectations to win now rise very sharply.
Maybe that pressure fed into this, because this reeks of a panic move, almost a knee jerk reaction without thinking. You almost hope O’Brien made a mistake and thought Steve Kiem said “1st round pick” instead of “4th round pick swap.” This is a trade that you accidentally make in Madden by pressing the “X” button too many times, leaving you yelling at the screen and begging the game to allow a do-over, because surely no one is ignorant enough to do that trade in real life.
Well, welcome to that moment. O’Brien is a good coach with considerable past success, and if he is relieved of his duties in Houston he will land on his feet somewhere. Helping develop Watson and Hopkins while taking Houston to multiple playoff appearances will be attractive to a winning-starved team looking for leadership, not to mention his ties to New England and his job in resurrecting the Penn State football program.
But make no mistake; Houston will not tolerate this. Hopkins was becoming, and may already be, a franchise icon in the mold of Andre Johnson and even Arian Foster. He was probably more talented than either of those players, and still has a higher ceiling than anything Houston got in return for him in this trade. There is no more safety net; Houston might be justified in moving on from O’Brien now just by virtue of how dismal of a trade this is. Either O’Brien takes this team the distance, or at least close enough to show that he’s capable, or it’s more than likely that he will be the next big name packing bags and leaving Houston.
And I don’t think that Houston would mind that one bit.
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— Sam Putnam
