Patriots Plan: How (Why?!) New England Let DeAndre Hopkins Sign With Titans

Despite apparent symmetry with need, interest, chemistry, fit and even money, the New England Patriots didn't do enough to sign coveted receiver DeAndre Hopkins.

As the dust settles and the NFL's last big-name, free-agent receiver heads for Nashville instead of Foxboro, we have to ask ourselves this real question: Did the New England Patriots really want DeAndre Hopkins?

Per his DNA, Bill Belichick will probably never give us a straight answer on the topic. When asked about it at the start of training camp next week he'll shrug and grumble something along the lines of "He's with the Titans now. I'm here to talk about our players."

But something's fishy about the way the DeAndre Derby abruptly ended Sunday afternoon. For more than a month the NFL world has smartly connected the dots from Hopkins to New England. But in the end he signed with Tennessee.

For Pats fans it's a confounding whiff, because the team had multiple reasons to acquire a proven veteran receiver with Hopkins' pedigree.

Without a star receiver and with play-caller Matt Patricia driving the offensive train right into the ditch, the Pats last season wasted a Top 10 defense and a league-leading seven non-offensive touchdowns. We all saw the drastic regression of quarterback Mac Jones. The offense scored 17 fewer touchdowns than in 2021, was the NFL's worst in the Red Zone and ranked 28th in first downs. New England receivers caught only 14 touchdowns last season, in the bottom 10 of the league.

The Pats are counting on new offensive coordinator Bill O'Brien to help and for JuJu Smith-Schuster to be an upgrade over Jakobi Meyers, but to think Hopkins wouldn't have upgraded an average receiving corps is just nonsense.

And there's this real mounting pressure on Belichick to prove to peers - and owner Robert Kraft - that he still has his fastball and can win without Tom Brady.

Hopkins and Belichick exchanged verbal bouquets last season, and the receiver flourished in O'Brien's offense when the two were together on the Houston Texans. O'Brien even rolled out the red carpet for his arrival in Foxboro. They hosted Hopkins for what by all accounts was a successful, positive visit a week a couple days after he left Tennessee.

Furthermore, the Pats met Hopkins' "requirements" of a new team: Good defense, stable front office and ascending quarterback. (Unless, that is, he considers Ryan Tannehill to be irrationally better than Jones?)

The need. The interest. The fit. The ... money?

The only two teams that made a contract offer to Hopkins were the Pats and Titans. Of those two, New England had much more ammunition with almost $18 million under the salary cap.

ESPN's Mike Reiss once predicted that the Pats would offer Hopkins $10 million for the 2022 season, with incentives of another $3 million. Tennessee signed him to a two-year, $26 million deal that will pay him $12 million this season with incentives of $3 million. That difference is $2 million for one season, for - again - a desperate team with deep pockets.

All the puzzle pieces of Hopkins-to-New England fit, until they didn't.

The national narrative is that old pal Mike Vrabel outbid Belichick. That the Titans won because they were more "aggressive." But those two things could only happen if the Pats let them happen.

The only logical conclusion as to why Hopkins will play in Tennessee instead of New England in 2023: In the end, for whatever reason, the Patriots didn't want him.

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