Patriots Mailbag: Can Pats Close DeAndre Hopkins Deal?

We’re about to enter a rare dead zone on the NFL calendar.

The league has mastered the art of year-round relevancy, populating its offseason with one major tentpole event per month (combine in late February/early March, free agency in mid-March, draft in April, spring practices in May and early June). The news cycle doesn’t stop when the Super Bowl ends. In some ways, it actually intensifies.

But in the five- or six-week window between mandatory minicamp and the start of training camp, the NFL more or less goes dark. Players and coaches take vacations. The flood of daily rumors and updates slows to a trickle. Everyone — league personnel and media members alike — rests up until late July, when the 6 1/2-month sprint toward Super Bowl LVIII in Las Vegas begins.

The New England Patriots, who replaced what would have been their final spring practice on Wednesday with a paintball excursion, are about to enter that period. You’ll see a less frequent Patriots content on NESN.com for the next 1 1/2 months, and this will be the final Patriots mailbag until the start of camp.

But the landscape of Patriots-related news won’t be completely barren, because we’re still awaiting a resolution to the months-long DeAndre Hopkins saga.

Hopkins visited the Patriots on Thursday. By all accounts, that visit went well. He posted a photo of himself palling around with Matthew Judon inside the Patriots locker room. Multiple reports indicated the sides had mutual interest.

But the five-time Pro Bowl receiver left Gillette Stadium without a contract and reportedly plans to wait before making his final decision. Will that wait last until Friday? Until next week? Until training camp? We don’t know.

Unsurprisingly, this week’s mailbag was stuffed with questions about whether the Patriots will and should sign Hopkins. I just covered the “will they?” part. Should they? Yes. Absolutely.

As I’ve written seemingly dozens of times over the past several months, adding Hopkins makes a ton of sense for the receiver-needy Patriots. And they seem to be a good fit for him, too, especially since he’s said he doesn’t need to play with a superstar quarterback and doesn’t seem interested in ring-chasing. Now that we know the presence of Bill O’Brien won’t be a roadblock, there’s really no reason for this deal not to get done, unless Hopkins is demanding some sort of outrageous financial commitment.

Will it? We’ll see.

Let’s get to some of your other questions:

@JmoKnowsBall
Which WR(s) are most likely to be cut assuming we sign DHop
The most obvious answer would be DeVante Parker, who was not interested in discussing a potential Hopkins signing when asked about it this week. Having both on the roster could be viewed as redundant, and Parker has no guaranteed money left on his contract, meaning the Patriots can clear his entire $6.2 million off their books by cutting or trading him.

Cutting or trading Kendrick Bourne would clear $5.5 million in cap space (with $1.4 million in dead money left behind), so that’s another possibility. But I like the skill-set versatility that a receiving corps of Hopkins, JuJu Smith-Schuster, Bourne and Tyquan Thornton could provide.

Such a move could come immediately if the Patriots feel like they need the cap flexibility (they came out of minicamp with just over $14 million in available space, which should be more than enough to fit Hopkins) or want to package Parker or Bourne in a trade for a different player (an offensive tackle, perhaps?). But with Smith-Schuster and Thornton already missing time due to injury, they could opt to hang on to everyone until closer to cutdown day for depth/insurance purposes.

@YorkSports12
If Douglas or Kayshon don’t make the 53 man roster, do you see both getting through waivers and onto the practice squad?
That’ll depend on how they perform in training camp and especially preseason games. Right now, Demario Douglas is further along than Kayshon Boutte, who missed a string of practices and caught a tongue-lashing from O’Brien in another. But neither is close to roster-lock territory, and Douglas didn’t do much to distinguish himself after a promising performance in the first open OTA.

Barring injury, I’d be surprised if more than one of the Patriots’ rookie wideouts (Boutte, Douglas, Malik Cunningham and Ed Lee) crack the initial 53-man roster. My latest projection only had Douglas in, and that was based more on projection than what we’ve seen thus far.

All four are intriguing players, though. URI’s Lee unexpectedly was the most consistent first-year wideout this spring, and I’ll be interested to see how Cunningham, a highly athletic converted QB, performs in camp as he acclimates to his new position. The Louisville product said he’d never run routes in his life before this spring and is “doing this all off raw athleticism,” so the early struggles we saw from him were understandable.

@BMI1129
What role do you foresee for Jack Jones and will boutte catch the Foxboro flu ?
Foxboro Flu definitely is possible for Boutte if the Patriots like his potential but don’t think he’s ready. I highly doubt all 12 of their draft picks will make the team out of camp, so stashing one or more of them on injured reserve or the physically unable to perform list would make sense.

As for Jones, I thought he looked great this spring, especially in minicamp. His interception of a Mac Jones deep ball to Hunter Henry might have been the most impressive play we saw in any of the team’s five open practices.

I came a long way but I’m not done like overtime. pic.twitter.com/K79SjaOZtS

— Jack Jones🏄🏽‍♂️ (@presidentjacc) June 14, 2023

As long as Jones can avoid any more off-the-field mishaps like the one that caused his team-imposed suspension last season, I expect him to be a major contributor and potentially a starter at outside cornerback. Christian Gonzalez, Jonathan Jones and Jack Jones (in varying orders) were the top options there this spring, with Marcus Jones also rotating in after shaking an apparent injury that limited him in OTAs.

@KP_Booth
With the Robinson experiment over, do you see them looking at any of the veteran RBs still on the market? If so, who is the best fit?
Cutting James Robinson certainly left the Patriots a bit thin at running back behind Rhamondre Stevenson, which was a big problem for them last season. Bill Belichick really likes Ty Montgomery, and I saw some good things from Pierre Strong and Kevin Harris this spring, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the Patriots looked to add another veteran to their backfield before training camp.

There are a surprising number of notable names still on the market three months into free agency. The recently released Dalvin Cook is the headliner, but that group also features Ezekiel Elliott, Kareem Hunt, Leonard Fournette, Kenyan Drake, Melvin Gordon, Darrell Henderson and J.D. McKissic.

The Patriots have shown interest in Fournette in the past, even bringing him in for a free agent visit last offseason. Could he be an option if he’s willing to sign for cheap? Tom Brady’s former backfield mate averaged just 3.5 yards per carry last season, but he did catch 73 passes, third-most among running backs behind Austin Ekeler and Christian McCaffrey.

@ErickRu
Which day 3 rookie will have the biggest impact this season
Tie between fourth-round kicker Chad Ryland and sixth-round punter Bryce Baringer. I think they’ll beat out Nick Folk and Corliss Waitman, respectively, this summer, and no other Day 3 draftee projects as a starter.

@nesnbets
What is the Best Sports Movie?
This question was posed to the Twittersphere at large, not to me directly, but I’ll give my take here anyway.

I have to go “Remember the Titans” at No. 1, with “Miracle” a close second. “Friday Night Lights,” “Major League” and “The Sandlot” are in the next tier down. I also have a soft spot for “Mighty Ducks 2,” which 5-year-old Zack must have watched about three times a week.

You can’t go wrong with classics like “Slap Shot” and “Bull Durham,” either, but they’re lower in my power rankings. And I’m a little embarrassed to admit I’ve never actually seen “Raging Bull,” which I know many people consider the GOAT sports movie. Might need to be on my to-do list before training camp.

Sports documentaries are a separate category, but if we’re including those, too, “Murderball,” “Hoop Dreams” and “Free Solo” would be near the top of my list. “The Last Game,” too. I’d highly recommend that one — it’s essentially a season-long “Hard Knocks” on a Pennsylvania high school powerhouse — to any football fan who hasn’t checked it out.