The New England Patriots are a good football team in a division filled with elite football teams. What Bill Belichick has on the roster isn’t enough. The Patriots need DeAndre Hopkins — and Belichick seems to recognize that, with an aggressive pitch to the free-agent wide receiver during their meeting at Gillette Stadium on Thursday.
But it’s not just a matter of money with Hopkins. It’s also a matter of whether he and Belichick think they can work together smoothly. Belichick allows fewer veteran rest days than most teams. And the 31-year-old Hopkins has recently required a great deal more veteran rest days than most stars. Still, on Thursday afternoon, a source told me a deal is realistic and that everything was trending the right way.
That was until Hopkins left the facility. He may be willing to wait until training camp to make his decision, according to multiple reports. Hopkins will likely use the Patriots to push up the asking price from the Tennessee Titans, who met with Hopkins this week, and from the Kansas City Chiefs, who are a likely suitor. The question is whether he is only using the Patriots for that purpose — or whether they are still in the mix.
There’s no doubt: The Patriots need to stay in the mix.
Their offense didn’t wow during spring practices, which is fine. They looked really solid last year during the spring sessions and then everything nosedived when they put on pads in training camp. So OTAs and minicamp aren’t necessarily predictive of regular-season performance.
But the Patriots did give the clear sense that they’re thin at wideout. It’s not the end of the world, given that they are clearly going to lean on their tight ends, Mike Gesicki and Hunter Henry. But there’s no denying their receiver room is poorly constructed. They have four different WR3s. And all of them have asterisks.
- DeVante Parker is often injured, he struggled with production in the offense last year, and he has eclipsed 1,000 yards just once in his career.
- JuJu Smith-Schuster is projected to replace Jakobi Meyers, which should be a productive role. But Smith-Schuster is entering his first year in the system and that can make for a tough transition, particularly when he revealed this offense is starkly different from those he played in with the Steelers and Chiefs.
- Kendrick Bourne was in the team’s doghouse for mental mistakes and practice inconsistencies in 2022. He was targeted only occasionally during spring practices. He celebrated his only touchdown of minicamp heartily (which probably drew an eye-roll from Belichick) in the same practice during which he ran a lap for lining up in the wrong spot.
- Not only did Tyquan Thornton deal with injuries last season, but he also managed an injury this spring. The 2022 second-round pick finished last season with 22 catches for 247 yards and two touchdowns.
The fix is obvious: Sign DeAndre Hopkins.
Maybe he creates a redundancy with Parker, a pair of big-bodied possession receivers. But Hopkins is an upgrade. And if Parker can handle moving down the depth chart, the team might want to keep him around. New England can easily fit all five wideouts on the roster.
Typically, a smart team would look around the division and say: You know what, this isn’t our year. Next year would be a better time for us to complete the rebuild and contend for a Super Bowl. New England, after all, is set to be one of the teams with the most salary cap space in 2024. The free agency and draft classes should be better than this year — when both were, frankly, a bit of a flop. Aaron Rodgers might retire. The Bills are headed for salary cap hell. The Dolphins‘ star talent might begin to show its age.
But Belichick doesn’t think that way. He wants to contend every year. And there’s another level of urgency.
It’s Don Shula’s all-time wins record. It’s an afterthought for this story. But Belichick is 19 wins shy of Shula — that might take two or maybe even three more seasons. If Belichick can’t win those 17 games in the next two seasons, will owner Robert Kraft want the 71-year-old coach to continue? The team owes Belichick its six Super Bowls. But if the Patriots are headed in the wrong direction and Belichick needs three seasons to get to Shula’s record, then the relationship might get complicated.
Hopkins makes sense for the Patriots at an X’s and O’s level. He also makes sense for the Patriots and Belichick on a legacy level.
The question for Hopkins — who may only play a few more seasons — is whether the Patriots make sense for him. New England is likely to offer him more money than other interested teams. Maybe the Patriots will offer the most money, though that is often a rarity for Belichick when bidding for an aging player like D-Hop.
In the coming weeks, Hopkins might get a team like the Chiefs to up their offer — and then he can get the best of both worlds: a really good salary and a really good quarterback. That’s the biggest thing the Patriots lack: a really good quarterback. That’s where their offer might come up short.
Prior to joining FOX Sports as the AFC East reporter, Henry McKenna spent seven years covering the Patriots for USA TODAY Sports Media Group and Boston Globe Media. Follow him on Twitter at @henrycmckenna.
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New England Patriots
DeAndre Hopkins
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