Chiefs, Andy Reid 'Kept In Contact' with DeAndre Hopkins Before Signing with Titans

Wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins is signing with the Tennessee Titans, but the Kansas City Chiefs and head coach Andy Reid were reportedly in touch with Hopkins until he made his decision.

Arizona Cardinals receiver DeAndre Hopkins waits during a timeout during the third quarter against the Houston Texans in Glendale on Oct. 24, 2021

After months of rumors and speculation, wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins will not be a member of the Kansas City Chiefs. However, KC's interest in Hopkins still appears to have been genuine.

Hopkins has reportedly agreed to a deal with the Tennesee Titans, first reported by Doug Kyed. The contract is for two years and $26 million, worth up to $32 million with incentives, per Ian Rapoport. As Hopkins heads back to the AFC South, his contract and the Chiefs' approach provides some insight into KC's best offer, how they view their wide receiver room, and even the pending contract extension for star defensive tackle Chris Jones.

First, the report from Jeremy Fowler of ESPN:

The #Chiefs (including Andy Reid) kept in contact on DeAndre Hopkins’ free agency. But with Chris Jones extension still not done and minimal cap space, Kansas City didn’t have a contract offer to compete.

Fowler notes that the Chiefs remained in touch with Hopkins throughout his free agency, something Fowler had also reported 10 days earlier. This time, he notes that head coach Andy Reid was personally involved in the communication, which indicates the Chiefs' full-fledged pursuit. In 2021, JuJu Smith-Schuster said Reid was personally recruiting him to KC, including sending him pictures of the Lombardi Trophy, which apparently almost worked. Smith-Schuster said "it would've been KC after the Steelers" after re-signing with Pittsburgh, a year before coming to Kansas City on a one-year deal and winning a Super Bowl with the Chiefs.

With that in mind, it's fair to see this as a genuine but not make-or-break pursuit for the Chiefs. There's no reason for Reid to be recruiting a receiver he didn't actually want, but Reid (and general manager Brett Veach) didn't take extreme measures to land Hopkins.

Reading between the lines: the Chiefs, like most fans, know they could improve their wide receiver group that currently places significant pressure on second-year receiver Skyy Moore and the explosive but often-injured Kadarius Toney. The unit's ceiling is tremendously high, but a player like Hopkins certainly could have solidified the group. However, Reid and Veach let Hopkins land in Tennessee, so there's no sense of panic about an interesting but unknown receiver group in Kansas City.

To go another layer deeper, Albert Breer of The MMQB tweeted about the Chiefs' pursuit of Hopkins and how it was impacted by the signing of left tackle Donovan Smith, also connecting Hopkins to a previous WR target:

Also, as we've mentioned a few times, the Chiefs essentially gave Donovan Smith the money they had earmarked for DeAndre Hopkins, after Odell Beckham's 💰 changed the dynamic in negotiations.
The Titans got way closer to what the Ravens gave OBJ than the Chiefs were going to.

The Chiefs eventually tapped out on Odell Beckham Jr., they eventually tapped out on Hopkins. Veach and Reid certainly would have liked a veteran future-Hall-of-Famer in their WR room, but only at a certain cost.

What about Chris Jones?

Fowler's report notes that Chris Jones's extension is still not finished, leaving the Chiefs with barely any salary cap space. Is that why KC couldn't sign Hopkins? They could only offer him the change in the cap's couch cushions?

Well, no, probably not.

Why would Hopkins sign with the Titans on July 16? He had been patient to this point, and the 31-year-old probably wasn't in a rush to get to training camp. Unless the Chiefs and Jones are completely stalled in their negotiations with no deal in sight, Hopkins should have waited to hear the Chiefs' best offer. Unless he already did.

I first saw this tweeted by Matt Lane of KC Sports Network, so I can never prove that he didn't come up with this idea first. The theory: the Chiefs and Jones have the bulk of Jones's extension figured out. There may be some details to finish off, but the Chiefs have a very strong idea of what they'd be willing and able to offer Hopkins after Jones's deal is official. Perhaps Hopkins had been waiting on a final word from the Chiefs, who did not get close enough to Tennessee's offer to keep Hopkins open any longer. That certainly fits Breer's report, noting that the Titans got closer to Beckham's contract than what the Chiefs would have offered. With that timeline and those offers, you can see why Hopkins would have decided it was time to take the best offer remaining.

What's the takeaway?

We're getting creative here, so here's the TL;DR version of what I'm projecting:

- The Chiefs were legitimately interested in signing DeAndre Hopkins.
- They're confident enough in the current wide receiver group that Hopkins would have been a luxury, not a necessity.
- The Chris Jones extension is largely done, at least with enough detail to have given Hopkins a "best offer."
- That "best offer" wasn't in the same financial ballpark as the Titans' best.

Now, with training camp just around the corner, KC's wide receiver group is set to be one of St. Joseph's most fascinating battles.

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