After weeks of speculation and the Cardinals unable to find a trade partner, Hopkins was released on Friday.
The Cardinals will absorb a dead salary cap hit of $21 million in 2023, but he will be cleared from the books after that. (They could declare him a June 1 cut, which would allow them to spread the hit evenly over this season and next if they choose.)
I’m not overly surprised by this. Other teams wanted Cards to eat money on his contract in a trade, and it wasn’t worth a mid round pick for them to do that.