The will they or won’t they between the Cleveland Browns and free agent wide receiver appears to come to a logical conclusion. Hopkins is not and was not ever coming to Cleveland.
That is at least what Browns beat reporter Mary Kay Cabot had to say. Appearing on the Chico Bormann Show, Cabot stated that there really was never an intention to “sign a DeAndre Hopkins“.
This comes as no shock. Hopkins has already began his free agent tour and Cleveland was notably absent from his early stops. That is before any reports of the money that Hopkins was seeking. With the moves that the Browns have already made in trading for Elijah Moore, signing Marquise Goodwin, and drafting Cedric Tillman. And all of that is before acknowledging the returning group of pass catchers in Amari Cooper, Donovan Peoples-Jones, David Bell, and David Njoku. There is also one more important piece of Cleveland’s offense worth mentioning, Nick Chubb. Chubb is going to get his fair share of touches in the running game. Finding a way to work in all of their current options at the skill positions with an overhauled offense is already a challenge. Adding a player like DeAndre Hopkins into the mix would only unnecessarily complicate things.
The Browns made their moves at the wide receiver position early this offseason and it was clear they were not really interested in playing the wait and see game when it came to DeAndre Hopkins, despite the public statements from his former quarterback Deshaun Watson.
While it may have been fun to go down memory lane for the two former Texans and seeing if they could pick up where they left off, the window for adding someone like DeAndre Hopkins to this Browns roster closed a long time ago.
