The news emerging in the aftermath of Monday night’s 49ers-Cardinals game has become far more interesting than anything that happened during the game itself.
In addition to Cardinals safety Budda Baker saying he doesn’t think everyone played hard during the 38-10 loss to whatever caused the Cardinals to fire offensive line coach Sean Kugler (don’t hold your breath for the story to be told during an upcoming episode of Hard Knocks), 49ers cornerback Charvarius Ward has teed off on Cardinals receiver DeAndre Hopkins.
“D Hop, he thinks he’s a tough guy,” Ward said in an appearance on KNBR, via NBC Sports Bay Area. “He thinks he still one of the best receivers in the league and he’s really not. He was trying to talk noise and talk hard all game. We’re not scared of him. He thought we were scared of him. He tried to intimidate us, but forget him, we did our thing. We went out there and got a ‘dub’ and we did our job. He was just yip-yapping all game, but we don’t care about that. We just wanted to win.
“He was getting locked up. He was doing some dirty things.He tried to clip me, he grabbed me by the throat. He grabbed my facemask on one play, so I don’t respect his game. That’s steroid boy.”
Hopkins missed the first six games of the 2022 regular season, due to a suspension under the PED policy. He has denied knowingly ingesting a banned substance. (As many who test positive for PEDs do.)
Beyond the “steroid boy” comments, the allegations of dirty play are concerning. And if the NFL sees an evidence of Hopkins crossing the line, he could end up being suspended.