Payne, who was an original Texan in 2002, said he'd been physically shaking with outrage since learning of the trade details.
The Texans are sending Hopkins to the Cardinals for aging running back David Johnson and a second-round draft pick.
It's difficult to make sense of, but reports indicate Hopkins did not get along very well with general manager and head coach Bill O'Brien.
That's not good enough for Seth, who's noted that O'Brien is not good enough at his job to not get along with players of Hopkins' caliber.
"I honestly am 100 percent dumbfounded by this," Seth said when he joined Clint Stoerner in the afternoon. "There's almost no explanation, including if DeAndre Hopkins wanted a bigger contract. If it's that Bill O'Brien thinks DeAndre Hopkins should've practiced more. None of this escapes Bill O'Brien's responsibility, because Bill O'Brien as the head football coach is not in charge of getting rid of every little headache he has. He's in charge of creating a culture on this team.
"And it seems so far, from last with Jadeveon Clowney to now, all of these myriad decisions, that Bill O'Brien has no interpersonal skills and anybody he has a conflict with, he blames that person and gets rid of them in a crappy trade.
"They paid money to show Jadeveon Clowney the door. They give this awful, awful trade that basically the (Atlanta) Falcons just pulled off for (Baltimore Ravens tight end) Hayden Hurst, except they did it with DeAndre Hopkins. This is astounding how quickly Bill O'Brien tries to get guys out of the organization who have value as football players, simply because Bill gets a little sad or a little grumpy, or he has the little temper tantrum because he doesn't understand that his job as an NFL head football coach is to manage guys that are really good football players.