What if...The Titans Don't Sign DeAndre Hopkins

No Photo today as my laptop is packed away for this and I don’t have photoshop on my iPad. Also, the grammar or spelling errors may be plentiful as I don’t have Microsoft Word on the iPad either.

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I am sitting in the Detroit airport hoping that I can finish this article before my laptop battery dies. Not sure why none of thee outlets in Detroit’s airport work but here we are. I am filled up on two coney dogs (breakfast of champions) and ready to take another trip into an alternate timeline.

BREAKING NEWS (Alternate Timeline): DeAndre Hopkins signs with the New England Patriots

Alternate Header: What Does this Say About the Titans?

Well, the Titans lost out on DeAndre Hopkins, after taking his sweet ass time, he chose the Patriots over the Titans. Luckily, the Titans won’t have to see Hopkins this season. Maybe that is also unluckily because that would be a guaranteed win.

Mike Vrabel and Ran Carthon have their first official “big swing and a miss” in their tenure as co-pilots of Titans Airlines. So, in this particular timeline what does Hopkins signing with the Patriots say about the Titans?

Well, there is two ways to look at it, they’re cheap or they’re in a perceived worse situation. Let’s look at the idea of them being cheap. Hopkins has been all about the money. No bones about it, it’s all about what he will bring home this year.

We know that there is roughly a million dollar difference in taxes that favors Tennessee for a given season for players. Obviously ti depends on the final amount, but the Patriots are notorious for being thrifty at this stage of the offseason and typically cheap overall. So, for them to beat out the Titans they’re either desperate or the Titans came in way too low.

Being cheap also means the Titans failed to get creative with their offer. Sometimes, and we have seen it here but its not a Tennessee only thing, a team can be woefully uncreative or restrict themselves with how they put together or design a contract.

The blueprint is there for any team in the NFL and their offer to Hopkins. You just have to be willing to eat the dead money in 2024 like the Ravens are willing for OBJ. A lot has been made about the Titans having over $80m in cap space next year, but the Patriots have more. They have just over $97.3 million in cap space in 2024.

So, while the Titans can get creative, the Patriots can get more creative and offer more. They’d likely have to have an offer that is a few million more to beat out the Titans. You’d have to compensate for the difference in bring home and really if I was Hopkins’s agent I would charge extra for a BoB/Mac Jones tax.

The Titans being cheap can be a good thing if the Patriots offer is outrageous. However, what if they’re similar contracts and the he chooses the Patriots over the Titans. What does that say about the team?

It says that Hopkins has a perceived view that the Patriots are in a better situation than the Titans and that with all things equal on the monetary front he feels the better opportunity is in Boston.

He’s absolutely wrong but we know free agents’ perceived team’s reputation with passing frequency does influence their decisions. We heard all about free agents not choosing the Ravens under Greg Roman because he doesn’t pass, it would stand to reason that the same can be said about the Titans.

The last above average free agent wide receiver the Titans attracted was Rishard Matthews. They had to trade for Julio Jones but other than that tons of players that are just has beens or role-players are the only kind the Titans attract/sign.

Now, I still think he’d be wrong in his perception. Tim Kelly has had offenses that sustain high target rates for multiple receivers and the fact that Treylon Burks and Derrick Henry are here should automatically free up Hopkins. On top of that, Mac Jones is 100% a worse quarterback than Ryan Tannehill.

However, maybe he is thinking in terms of: I would easily bee the alpha in the Patriots wide receiver room and can really showcase my skills there. Here he would be fighting for more targets because there is a better overall pass catching room here. The Patriots have JuJu and that’s really about it.

Yet, we all know Tannehill has a habit of force-feeding wide receivers and he has the ability to do that with ease with an addition of Hopkins. However, in the end it does say a lot about the team’s perception that if the money is equal Hopkins would choose to go somewhere like Boston over Nashville.

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