Quarterback Deshaun Watson made it crystal clear Tuesday that he’d love for the Cleveland Browns to sign his former teammate DeAndre Hopkins.

Hopkins, a five-time Pro Bowl wide receiver, was released by the Arizona Cardinals on Friday after three seasons with the club. He spent his first seven NFL seasons with the Houston Texans, earning three All-Pro honors.

“Me and D-Hop, we just naturally talk. We’ve been talking since the Houston days, and whenever he was in Arizona, we were always talking,” Watson said at the Browns Foundation Golf outing at Westwood Country Club. “He’s always been a brother of mine since I was coming out of high school. Our connection, our relationship has always been great. And I know there’s a lot of things swirling around in the media about him possibly coming to Cleveland.
“For me, my answer to that is, of course we’d love to have him.”

Hopkins noted that he’s looking for three things in a team when speaking on a podcast with Brandon Marshall last week. Per Hopkins, he wants stable management, a quarterback who “loves the game like I do” and “a great defense.”

“I’ll just say this, D-Hop, DeAndre Hopkins would love to be in a place where the opportunity is there for us to win,” Watson said Tuesday. “We check all those boxes and I think for us to know and make sure we check all those boxes on the national stage, we’ve got to go out there and prove it and I think D-Hop would love to be a part of that.”

The Browns, however, have a crowded wide receiver room, led by Amari Cooper and Donovan Peoples-Jones. They also added Elijah Moore and Marquise Goodwin in the offseason, and selected Cedric Tillman in the third round of the draft.

“I really, really like our wide receiver room,” Browns coach Kevin Stefanski said at the same event. “I love the guys that are in there. Andrew and his crew are always looking at every avenue, so I won’t comment specifically on the player other than to say that I really like our roster.”

–Field Level Media