Locked On Titans - Daily Podcast On The Tennessee Titans - DeAndre Hopkins to Tennessee Titans Options, Vrabel's Houston Connection & Hopkins Personal Criteria

Episode Date: May 28, 2023

The Tennessee Titans have a desperate need at wide receiver and now one of the best receivers in recent memory is on the open market in DeAndre Hopkins. How can the Titans sign him? Tyler goes over all the moves the Titans can make to bring him in. Next, why would Hopkins come to Tennessee? On top of the Houston connection with Mike Vrabel, Hopkins would get a ton of opportunity. Finally, why would Hopkins not come to Tennessee? Tyler goes over Hopkins' personal checklist and sees how the Titans stack up.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!Built BarBuilt Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKEDON15,” and you’ll get 15% off your next order.FanDuelMake Every Moment More. Don’t miss the chance to get your No Sweat First Bet up to TWO THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS in Bonus Bets when you go FanDuel.com/LOCKEDON.FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Titans fans, sound the alarms. DeAndre Hopkins is a free agent. And I'm going to tell you exactly how the Titans could bring him in on today's edition of the Locked On Titans podcast. Let's get it. You are Locked On Titans, your daily Tennessee Titans podcast. Part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day.

Welcome to the Locked on Titans podcast. I am your host, Tyler Rowland, Titans fans. The Titans may have been saved. DeAndre Hopkins was released by the Arizona Cardinals and is now a free agent. I'm going to tell you how the Titans can sign him, reasons why he would join Tennessee. We'll talk about reasons why he wouldn't join Tennessee as well. But before we get into it, I do want to let you know that today's episode is brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook, the official sportsbook of the NFL.

Make every moment more. Visit FanDuel.com slash locked on to get started today. Also want to thank you guys for making the Locked on Titans podcast your first listen every day, Monday through Friday, Tennessee Titans content on YouTube and your favorite podcast app all year round and always for free. Make sure that you get subscribed. Stay subscribed to the Locked on Titans podcast

where it's your team every day. Shout out to my everydayers as well who are listening to the showed on Titans podcast where it's your team every day. Shout out to my everydayers as well who are listening to the show Monday through Friday. Got a lot of great content coming up for you guys this week. We got another Titans practice coming this week.

I'm going to do what I want to see from that practice and then do a full recap of that practice. Make sure that you guys stay locked into the Locked on Titans podcast so you aren't missing any of the content that I got coming your way. Throw a thumbs up on the video

if you're watching right now on YouTube. Definitely goes a long way to help support the channel and I greatly appreciate it. But moving right into this DeAndre Hopkins conversation. On Friday, Hopkins was released by the Cardinals and a lot of people were calling it a stunning move, a shocking move. I don't really think it's that surprising.

If you look at Arizona's situation, Kyler Murray's going to be out the whole year probably with an ACL tear. The Cardinals are not in a position as a team to say that they're trying to win anything of significance this year. So it makes sense to not pay a wide receiver going to be 31 years old, $30 million on your cap hit. So some people are saying this was a bad move for Arizona because they got to eat all of DeAndre Hopkins' money right now. But I think that's the smart thing to do for the Cardinals.

They get rid of Hopkins. They have a bad year. They have the Texans draft pick and their own, maybe two top five draft picks. You go into next all season with a ton of cap space because you don't got to pay Hopkins anything. You got to pay it right now. I think the Cardinals did a good job.

But either way, moving right along, Hopkins is available. And the Titans have to look at ways that they can potentially bring him in because there was a desperate need at wide receiver. And a guy like DeAndre Hopkins, if you brought him in, look, this is different than the Titans having to trade draft assets, pay DeAndre Hopkins the $19 million that he was owed in salary. This changes the game for the Titans from that perspective. So they don't have to give the assets and pay the money that you would think you were going to have to, to obtain this kind of player that could go with Traylon

Burks. Burks is a big physical athlete that's young and ready to go. Hopkins is obviously a big physical player, but he's a savvy vet who can kind of take advantage of situations that may be opened by Traylon Burks' physicality and explosiveness. So they could work perfectly together. And with the Titans two wide receiver sets being their base formation, I think this would be an excellent fit for the Titans. So how do they do it? Okay. Number one, we got to get the less appetizing options out of the way. Number one, and this is something that I floated on Friday. We have been talking about Elijah, my everydayers who listen to the show every day would know we talked about Elijah Molden the ton last week and his transition to safety. Okay.

last week and his transition to safety. Okay? And I floated the idea out there and a lot of you guys didn't like it, but what if the Titans are training Elijah Molden not only as a depth piece to be their third safety, but to take over for Kevin Byard if they ultimately have to move on. We've heard the whispers about the pay cut,

trades, release, all that. So I say all that to say this, the Titans could just cut Kevin Byard straight after June the 1st, which is in a couple of days now. And they would add to the $11 million in salary cap space that they already have. So you add in Byards, I think it's 13 or 14 million that they would save if they cut him after June 1st. Now you're talking about 25, $26 million in cap space. You could fit Odell Beck, or Odell Beckham. You'll understand why I made that slip up in a second. You could fit DeAndre Hopkins in there. You can't fit DeAndre Hopkins in well, in my opinion, with an $11 million cap.

It's not the easiest route, but you can do it, and we'll get to that. But the cleanest route for the Titans is to cut Bayard. Now, I don't think that they should do that, because if you're bringing in DeAndre Hopkins, you're going for it. You're trying to win. You can't get rid of Kevin Bayard if you're trying to win. So the other option, of course, would be cut Ryan

Tannehill. That saves you $18 million, but I got to tell you guys, Hopkins is only going to come to Tennessee if Tannehill is in the saddle. I don't think that Tannehill is some selling point, but you can't go to DeAndre Hopkins and say you're going to have Will Levis or Malik Willis throw into you. That's just not a serious thing that

DeAndre Hopkins is going to want to be involved in. So you could cut Tannehill, you could cut Byard straight up, but I just don't think thing that DeAndre Hopkins is going to want to be involved in. So you could cut Tannehill. You could cut Bayard straight up. But I just don't think that that's the right move because if you go get DeAndre Hopkins, you need those players. That's the whole point. The next thing they could do is a restructure or an extension of guys like Derek Henry, Kevin Bayard, or Ryan Tannehill.

Those are the guys with the big money contracts. So you could do a slight extension with a couple of them or do an extension for Derrick Henry, do a restructure of Kevin Byard, and then you would have the ability to have the money that you need. Because listen, guys, it's not just about having the cap space you need to bring in Hopkins. The Titans still need to sign their first two draft picks,

Peter Skowronski and Will Levis. That'll probably cost $3 million in net, maybe $4 million in net. They also have to have money to make moves during the season. Plus, if the Titans want to bring in certain players after cuts happen later in the summer, then they're going to need some salary cap space to work with. You can't just go into the year with zero cap space and say,

hey, the roster's set. We're good to go. That's not how it's going to work. So you can't just have enough money for Hopkins. You've got to have enough money for Hopkins and moves after. And if you did an extension of Derrick Henry, which is something we've heard in the rumors this summer anyways, or this spring,

and then you did a restructure of Bayard, maybe Bayard would take a pay cut if you're bringing in DeAndre Hopkins. Now you have some more options. Now, I want to go over an option that the Titans have that is based on historical precedent that would require them to just make a smart deal. They wouldn't have to cut Bayard. They wouldn't have to extend. They wouldn't have to cut Bayard.

They wouldn't have to extend. They wouldn't have to restructure Tannehill, Henry, any of that. And I want to throw a contract up on the screen here, and it's Odell Beckham Jr., his recent contract with the Ravens. So, his cap hit this year for the Ravens is basically $4 million.

It's $3.9 million. But, but, he got $15 million in cash. So how do you pay a guy $15 million for one season, but only have a $4 million cap hit, which would be great for the Titans. They have $11 million. You get $4 million to Hopkins.

You got $3 or $4 million to sign your first two draft picks, and then you have a little bit of money left over. You can make some moves still. That extension of Henry, give yourself a little more breathing room. A lot of ways to do this, but look at this contract from Odell Beckham Jr. It has four void years. So if you don't know how salaries, contracts work in the NFL,

you take the signing bonus money and you cut it up into individual pieces and spread it out throughout each year of the contract. So Odell Beckham Jr. has signing bonus money spread out throughout five years, $2.7 million for five years. Now, those four additional, it's a one-year contract. Those four additional years of contract are just void years. Odell Beckham's not going to play in those years. But with the way that they made the contract, adding those void years, they can lower the salary cap hit because they spread the bonus.

Instead of having all the bonus money in the first year, the bonus money can be spread out throughout the life of the contract, but it's just void years. They're fake years that you put on the end of the contract to allow you to lower your cap hit in year one. The Titans have used them this offseason on multiple contracts. They're used all over the NFL. It would make a ton of sense if the Titans had a ton of void years on DeAndre Hopkins' contract to lower his cap hit for this year.

They have way more salary cap space in the next two years to eat a dead cap. So give Hopkins a one-year deal worth $15, $16, $17 million, do a bunch of void years to spread out the bonus and get a lower cap hit so that it doesn't mess up your contract and you can keep Byard, Tannehill, and Henry as well. That's what the Titans can do. Now we need to talk about three reasons why Hopkins would come to the Titans. We're going to talk about that in just a moment. Before we get into it,

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That's Fandle.com slash locked on. Fandle, an official sports betting partner of the NBA. Welcome back to the Locked on Titans podcast. Titans fans, we are going to continue today's episode, breaking down DeAndre Hopkins. I just talked about the ways the Titans could sign DeAndre Hopkins, but the rest of the episode, I want to get into the reasonings why or why not things would happen. So we're going to go over three reasons why DeAndre Hopkins would come to the Tennessee

Titans here, and I'll cap off the show going over three reasons why DeAndre Hopkins wouldn't come to the Titans. So diving in here to the reasons why Hopkins would come to Tennessee. Number one, the Houston connection. So obviously, Mike Vrabel from 2014 to 2017 spent time in Houston. Tim Kelly from 2014 to 2020 spent time in Houston. Some of DeAndre Hopkins' best seasons of his life included Mike Vrabel and Tim

Kelly. Now look, Mike Vrabel was a defensive coach. He worked with linebackers, then he was the defensive coordinator. So it's not like him and DeAndre Hopkins were working together nonstop all the time, rubbing elbows in the meetings and stuff like that. But they definitely know each other. There's no way around that. And if Mike Vrabel had the impact on DeAndre Hopkins like he does most players who have been around Mike Vrabel, then Hopkins has immense respect for Mike Vrabel and probably knows that he's somewhat of a football genius. Along with the playing career accolades,

I mean, Mike Vrabel just got inducted into the Patriots Hall of Fame. So Mike Vrabel's persona, Mike Vrabel just got inducted into the Patriots Hall of Fame. So Mike Vrabel's persona, Mike Vrabel's, you know, aura carries weight. So I would imagine that DeAndre Hopkins know what Mike Vrabel is all about. Plus, he still played against Mike Vrabel when he was the head coach of the Titans the whole time when the last few years that he was in Houston.

So he knows what a Mike Vrabel football team is all about. Okay. And then you have Tim Kelly, who was involved intimately on the offensive side of the ball. He definitely knows DeAndre Hopkins. Now this could cut both ways because if Hopkins didn't like Kelly, if Hopkins didn't like Mike Vrabel, then this is obviously not a reason that he would come.

But we don't know that. We don't know the status of the relationship, good or bad, between those people. So if Hopkins had a good relationship with Tim Kelly, had a good relationship with Mike Vrabel, respected the work they put in in Houston, respected what Mike Vrabel's teams did in Tennessee while Hopkins was finishing out his tenure in Houston,

then that could make a ton of sense. That's a big reason why Hopkins may look at that and say, I trust Mike Vrabel. I trust Tim Kelly to get me the ball. I'm going to go there. And that's a perfect segue into reason number two. Get Hopkins the ball. So I did an article for Sports Illustrated on Friday

going over some of these reasons that I thought. And one of the things that stood out to me is the Titans have, I believe it's 190, 190 targets open this year. I think Robert Woods got 91 targets last year. Austin Hooper got like 44 or 50 targets. And then you add in all the mismatch. Racing with Matt got a couple.

And, you know, stuff like Dontrell Hilliard as well. If you look at the amount of players that got targets last year on the team that aren't with the team anymore, there is a huge volume of targets, passes, available for DeAndre Hopkins. Yes, it's coming back to me now. 190 targets are not on the team anymore. Targets, passes available for DeAndre Hopkins. Yes, it's coming back to me now. 190 targets are not on the team anymore. DeAndre Hopkins only got 190 targets or more,

I think, one time in his entire career. He got like 170 one year. He might have got to 190 one year. But like at this point in Hopkins' career, he doesn't need 190 targets. Okay. But he could use 125. He could use a hundred. Um, I mean, the point is the opportunity is available for Hopkins to get the ball, even in the Titans offense, even in the Titans offense that doesn't throw the ball at time, even in the Titans offense. Even in the Titans offense that doesn't throw the ball at times. Even in the Titans offense

that's run first. 190 targets are not on the team anymore this year. Those could all go to Hopkins. If you, if, I mean, here's the thing. Chigga Conquo, gonna get more targets this year. Traylon Burks,

gonna get more targets this year. So there's gonna be some natural, you know, eating into the target share with those guys taking a step forward. But heck, even if they get an additional 30 targets apiece, that's still 130 targets that can go to DeAndre Hopkins. So the opportunity, if he goes to Buffalo, if he goes to Kansas City, if he goes to Philadelphia, there may not be as many targets available to him

because there are more mouths to feed in those offense. The Titans could force feed DeAndre Hopkins the ball whenever he wanted it. Who are they going to tell no? Burks? He's a second year player. Get the ball to Burks. Get the ball to Chig. Get the ball to Hopkins. They never threw the ball to anybody else other than those guys and Tajay Spears, I wouldn't care. I wouldn't care. So, that's a big reason. He's gonna have more opportunity to get the ball in Tennessee than any other place, even if the

offense isn't ideal for a wide receiver. And the last thing that I want to talk about is money. The Chiefs and the Bills have less salary cap space than the Titans. I think out of all the teams that are available, the Titans are one of the top teams that can offer a financial deal.

And the last thing I want to say is, according to Albert Breer from Sports Illustrated, technically my coworker, whatever, this is about money. Mike Giardi as well has been tweeting this. Hopkins wants to be paid. Hopkins isn't ring chasing. Hopkins about money. Mike Giardi as well has been tweeting this. Hopkins wants to be paid. Hopkins isn't ring chasing. Hopkins wants money.

He wants a good contract with good money. So to me, it's pretty obvious that Tennessee could offer a better deal than maybe some of these high-end contenders like Kansas City, like Buffalo, that a lot of people are penciling DeAndre Hopkins into. The Titans can offer a bigger deal than that. Will they? I don't know, but they can. So whether it be the Houston connection, whether it be the opportunity for him to get the ball, whether it be the opportunity for him to get paid, that's three reasons why DeAndre Hopkins would absolutely consider the Tennessee Titans. There are more reasons than that, too, that we could go to, like the division competitiveness,

revenge against Houston, no state income tax, although I think that's a little overplayed. But there are more reasons than that, but those top three reasons, Houston connection, offensive opportunity, financial opportunity, those are great reasons why Hopkins would join Tennessee. But now we got to talk about, we got to keep it fair, guys. I know some of you don't like it, but I got to keep it fair.

What are three reasons why Hopkins would not come to Tennessee? We're going to talk about that in just a moment. Titans fans, let's cap off today's edition of the Locked on Titans podcast. We're talking about DeAndre Hopkins, released by the Cardinals on Friday. I talked about what the Titans can do to bring in DeAndre Hopkins, released by the Cardinals on Friday. I talked about what the Titans can do to bring in DeAndre Hopkins financially at the beginning of the show.

We talked about why DeAndre Hopkins would want to come to Tennessee in the first place in the second part of our show. Now I want to cap off to be balanced and be fair, why DeAndre Hopkins wouldn't come to Tennessee. Before we get into that, I do want to thank you guys again for making the Locked on Titans podcast your first listen every day. Remember, Monday through Friday, Tennessee Titans content on all apps,

including YouTube, your favorite podcast app, all year round and always for free. Get subscribed. Stay subscribed to the Locked on Titans podcast. Throw a thumbs up on the video right now if you're watching. It definitely helps support the channel, and I appreciate it. But OTAs later this week for the Titans. We've got practices to talk about.

I'm going to be doing my wish list and a preview of practice. I'm going to be recapping practice later in the week. Don't miss any of that. Hit the notification bell. Again, get subscribed, stay subscribed. Free year-round Tennessee Titans content. You're not going to want to miss it. But what I want to say first, before I get into the reasons why Hopkins would not come to Tennessee,

I don't think he's coming. That's all there is to it. I don't see, yes, offensive opportunity, personal connections, financial opportunity, but why in the world would 31-year-old DeAndre Hopkins choose to join the Titans? Realistically speaking. Okay, let's look at this.

Number one, Ryan Tannehill. And let me say this. On a podcast recently, I Am Athlete, I think is what it's called I am athlete podcast DeAndre Hopkins went on and talked about what his criteria was

for his next team and he talked about other things as well which I'll get into here but he talked about a good quarterback he wants a quarterback that rallies the team around him,

that's tough, that people want to play for, all that. Okay. And in a nutshell, you know, in a vacuum, you could say, oh, well, Tannehill rallies the troops. Tannehill's tough. Tannehill is a good quarterback. He's good. If you say anything less than that, you're not being honest.

Tannehill's not a bad quarterback. He's good. He's top half a bad quarterback. He's good. He's top half of the league. He's not great, though. Okay? And DeAndre Hopkins listed the top five quarterbacks that he wants to catch a pass from. Josh Allen, Pat Mahomes, Justin Herbert,

Lamar Jackson, Jalen Hurts. Those guys are in a class far above Ryan Tannehill. Those guys, Tannehill is good. Those guys are great, okay? I think that that's first, second-tier quarterback play right there. Those are five of the best eight quarterbacks in the entire NFL. That's not Tannehill, okay? Tannehill can rally the troops.

Tannehill has his teammates behind him, but he's just not those guys, man. So if you look at DeAndre Hopkins' first checkbox, good quarterback, but you look at it from the quarterbacks that he named, the Titans don't check that box. Tannehill does not

inspire players to want to come play with him. No one's ever said, well, Ryan Tannehill was there. I wanted to come play with him. They're not saying that. That'll never be said. But I want to go play with Josh Allen. I want to go play with Pat Mahomes.

We hear players say that a lot. Okay? So you just got to understand. I am saying that Tannehill is good, better than some people who hate him, but I'm also saying he is nowhere near those guys, which some people who really like him act like too. So I'm in the middle, of course, as I always am, and getting shouted at from both sides of angry people while I'm just in the middle.

But Tannehill's good, but he's not good enough for DeAndre Hopkins to care, okay? And then two, Hopkins said he wants stable management. Well, Mike Vrabel is stability. And if you're somebody like me who thinks Vrabel is in charge, Vrabel beat John Robinson in a power struggle, forced Amy, not forced, but told Amy Adams Strunk to get rid of John Robinson so he could hire a guy who could be his puppet.

And that's what Rand Carthon is. Okay? So, to me, stable, the Titans are stable management-wise because of Mike Vrabel. But if you're DeAndre Hopkins, you just hired a new general manager. That's not stability. That's not stability. That's not Brett Veach or Brandon Bean or Howie Roseman.

That's not, he's not, you guys, what happens is we are people who are Titans fans. We think all their young players are going to end up doing well. We think the team is going to be better than outside forces think. We always think, fans always think their guys are better than they are. Okay? There's a natural overinflation of your own kind. All right? That's just the way that it works.

We're fans of the team. Okay? DeAndre Hopkins isn't a fan of the team. He doesn't go, oh, well, Mike Rabel's been there for a while, so even though they got a new general manager, that's still stability. No, Hopkins is like, you just got a new general manager. That ain't stability.

You just fired your general manager in the middle of the season last year. That ain't stability. You just traded away A.J. Brown. That ain't stability. So, you look at the first two check boxes good quarterback stable management you could see how DeAndre Hopkins would go Titans don't check those boxes

even if as a Titans fan you're telling yourself we check those boxes yes we do what matters is what Hopkins thinks not what we think and you could see from Hopkins' perspective, Ryan Tannehill just fired your general manager. You could see how we would say that they didn't check those boxes. And then finally, his last box was a good defense. He said, great defense. Defenses win championships. And you guys aren't going to like this, but again, I could see how DeAndre Hopkins would say the Titans don't check the box.

Hopkins and the Cardinals rolled the Titans last time they played. Murdered them in week one of 2021. Killed them. Crushed that defense. Then, the Titans gave up the most passing yards in the NFL last year. The most. You can say, because you're a Titans fan, oh, well, the Titans' run defense was so good

that teams tried to pass on the Titans more. So it's really overinflated, the passing yards, and it's more of a circumstance thing than it is the defense being bad. Oh, the Titans had 34 players on IR throughout the year, league-leading injuries again. It made the defense look worse than it really was. The defense is great when it's healthy. I, as a...

See all this stuff? As a Titans fan, I agree with all that context. Do you think DeAndre Hopkins cares? Do you think DeAndre Hopkins is watching the team every week and saying, oh, they were just injured. Oh, there's this. Oh, the run defense. No, he's going to look at a defense that gave up the most passing yards in the league last year and say, that ain't a great defense. So if you look at the three check boxes that Hopkins said himself, three check boxes that Hopkins said himself, yes, you could, Mike Grable with stability,

Tannehill is a good quarterback. The Titans defense can be great when they're healthy. You would say all of that. But if you're DeAndre Hopkins, you might say, I don't want to play with Ryan Tannehill. Give me a break. They just fired their general manager and the defense gave up the most passing yards in the league last year. So if you're Hopkins, Titans probably don't check those boxes. And not to mention the offense, Titans scoring ability, where the team's at right now. There are definitely reasons why Hopkins wouldn't come. And that's why the Titans should be going after DeAndre Hopkins. But I don't think that he ends up

in Tennessee. But that's going to do it for me today, folks. Again, I'll be back with you guys this week doing a preview and a recap of Titans practices, but as always, I am your host, Tyler Rowland, and this was Locked on Titans.