What the Data Says About DeAndre Hopkins

The Titans have mercifully ended the Nashville nightmare of DeAndre Hopkins discourse. Now that he is signed, what does the data say about his potential impact?

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It is finally over! The Tennessee Titans have signed DeAndre Hopkins and now the whole season is changed for the better. I have long thought that the Tennessee Titans made the most sense out of the realistic suitors for Hopkins’s services.

The Patriots never truly felt right, though they were the only team to make a competitive offer. The Bills made absolutely zero sense and the Chiefs proved they could win the Super Bowl without a big name WR1. Those Panthers, Browns rumors? Yeah, okay, bud.

The National media tried every which way to ignore or discount the Titans chances and like most things concerning the Titans, they got it wrong. Won’t get any apologies, they’ll just push forward and not make rightful amends to those of us that knew better.

However, the Titans are better today than they were a mere 48 hours ago and a signing like this can potentially change everything. I have a few data points I want to talk about today, but first we got to set the stage for the entire discussion with some context and myth-busting.

DeAndre Hopkins Context

I have said this on all of the shows I have done and even in some of the articles on here, but there is no true 1:1 comparison of Julio Jones and DeAndre Hopkins.

I say true, because they’re obviously both 30+ year old WRs signing with the Titans but they were coming off of entirely different seasons the prior year and are two different wide receivers skill wise.

While the box score scouting will tell you they had similar years, Hopkins was out mainly due to a PED suspension. Jones battled injuries. Now, people will say Hopkins missed the final two games due to injury, but I think that has more to do with them having their season basically already be over.

Even if it was an injury it was a minor injury. Hopkins has faced injuries before but he has always battled and played through them. Injury isn’t a concern like it was with Jones.

Even if you are concerned about the injury and till want to compare him to Jones, his injuries don’t have the same effect on him as it would a play like Jones.

Jones relied heavily on hiss other-worldly athleticism and explosiveness for much of his career. Not to say it was the only reason he was elite but it was a large part of his game. We saw his athleticism flash both here in Tennessee and in Tampa Bay but he couldn’t stay healthy enough to utilize it consistently. Thus, the rapid decline we all witnessed the last two years.

Hopkins is a receiver who wins on body-control, adjustments, leverage, and being a technician. He is athletic in his own right but he has never been some 4.2s kind of guy. I liken his career arc to something akin to a Larry Fitzgerald. Who played well into his thirties and was successful because he was able to be utilized in various ways and adapted to his surroundings very well.

This kind of skill-set allows a wide receiver of Hopkins’s pedigree to play and be very productive in this league. Now, I am not saying we should expect elite DeAndre Hopkins but we should see an uptick in explosive plays, scoring, and offensive efficiency.

Myth-Busting: The National Discourse

I don’t even know where to truly being with the National discourse now that the Titans have signed Hopkins. I knew that his decision to come to Nashville would be met with yawns and sometimes groans by the national guys but it’s a tab bit worse than I expected.

Look, I know full well out of all the destinations Hopkins was linked to, the one the media people wanted the least was the Titans. It was obvious. They just completely ignored or dismissed the Titans throughout this whole process. Sorry, not sorry, I guess?

But then you have Vegas barely changing point spreads and season totals. You have some analysts (who know that being negative gets engagement from Titans fans) predicting five wins. Some people predicting 0-6 or 1-5 at best start to the season even after the signing. While I always preach who cares, and still…who cares…but from a media perspective, it’s just disingenuous and incorrect.