The Arizona Cardinals are doing work to dominate the NFL’s wide receiver discourse over the past week. Not in a good way, mind you.
Four days after trading a first-round pick for Marquise “Hollywood” Brown — a wide receiver who ranked 103rd in the league last season with 6.9 yards per target — the Cardinals wound up in the spotlight again. Monday, the league announced five-time All-Pro wideout DeAndre Hopkins will be suspended for the first six games of the 2022 regular season after violating the NFL’s policy on performance enhancing drugs.
It’s a damaging blow in what’s been the nadir of a stellar pro career. Hopkins had season-long lows of just 42 catches and 572 receiving yards after playing only 10 games in 2021 due to injury. As a result, he missed Arizona’s first playoff appearance since 2016 — an uncompetitive 34-11 loss to the eventual Super Bowl champion Los Angeles Rams.
