DeAndre Hopkins has had quite the offseason. The man called Nuk was traded to the Arizona Cardinals and then signed a two-year extension worth $54.5 million that will keep him in Arizona for a minimum of five years. What might be the most impressive part is that Hopkins negotiated his extension basically by himself.
Hopkins said that he wants to be an NFL GM after his playing days are over:
“It’s ownership and me believing in myself and my abilities to study the terminology of contracts and me knowing where I want to be after football,” Hopkins said Tuesday, via the Arizona Republic. “I know one day I want to be a part of an organization and help build it, so I feel like this was a good time to learn and study everything that hopefully, I’ll one day 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’s never no knock on the agent or nothing against the agent that I had previously. There was no bad ties with them. It was just something that I wanted to do myself.”
Hopkins, 28, obviously has a lot of time left in the NFL as a player. He’s not the first player to negotiate their contract. Larry Fitzgerald, Russell Okung, Richard Sherman, Bobby Wagner, and Laremy Tunsil are just a few to follow that path. Hopkins noted a desire to learn as the reason why he wanted to do his contract extension.
It’s not unrealistic that Hopkins could become a GM. John Lynch and John Elway have both become GM’s. Jason Wright also recently got promoted to run the business side of the Washington Football team.
