One of the best wide receivers in the league had a lot to say during an in depth interview with GQ that was published on Tuesday.
Houston Texans wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins spoke on various topics that included how upset he felt when the team failed to contact Colin Kaepernick when Deshaun Watson went down an ACL injury in 2017.
“Yeah, I was upset,” the All-Pro receiver said. “Everybody needed to give Kaep a look. He can help a team win. I’ve seen a lot of quarterbacks that’s not as good as Kaep, but teams don’t want the heat behind them.”
Hopkins also spoke on late team founder Bob McNair when he stated “We can’t have the inmates running the prison” during a meeting between a group of owners and players in the wake of President Donald Trump’s criticism of the players who choose to kneel during the anthem.
Hopkins skipped practice that day.
“I went home. I ain’t going to practice today. Hell no. I was about to not play in the game. … They tried calling me, but I wasn’t going back. Hell no.”
Hopkins was seriously thinking of not playing in a game against the Seattle Seahawks because of those comments.
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“I really didn’t want to play in that game, dog,” he said. “I was like, “(Expletive), this is bigger than a game, man.” I’ve got to stand for something (for my children). If their daddy don’t stand up, then what the hell am I going to tell them?”
Ultimately, it was his teammates that convinced him to play, He was one of a large number of Texans players to kneel during the anthem.
“I play for them,” he said. “I don’t play for nobody else but my teammates and my family. That’s it.
“And then when we kneeled in Seattle, you know what they did? They didn’t even boo, bro. I was like, “Damn, I love Seattle. They understand what we go through.”
McNair, who passed in November 2018, apologized twice for his comments, but would ultimately state he regretted his apology, saying “I really didn’t have anything to apologize for.”
