Former Houston Texans and Arizona Cardinals wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins created headlines last week when he posted a photo of the New Englands Patriots locker room after his visit to Foxborough.
Hopkins, however, left without a signed contract. That may not have been a coincidence, either, with the Patriots reportedly “wary” of multiple aspects of signing H0pkins to a free agent contract.
“And what I hear is, I think people in the building are still wary, to an extent, of the culture fit,” NBC Sports reporter Tom E. Curran told WEEI’s Jones and Mego.
“How much does he want to practice? What kind of hoops are the Patriots themselves going to have to jump through to accommodate the way he likes to approach the game?”
Curran also noted that the Patriots’ impressive offensive performance last year under returning offensive coordinator Bill O’Brien (who was the Texans’ head coach from 2014-20; Hopkins played there from 2013-19) likely reduced the need for New England to go out of the way to sign Hopkins. However, he said their OTAs and minicamps suggest they do have some offensive work to do still.
“To me, if you watched OTAs this week or the minicamps, you could blatantly see that the optimism that I had about the on-paper potential is pretty much dashed by watching what they put on the field.”
And Curran didn’t rule out the idea the Patriots could sign Hopkins on their terms.
“I just don’t think it’ll be a hard sell in which they’re saying, ‘You’re our missing piece.’ But I do think that they’ll say, ‘Look, you’re a piece that’s going to make everybody better here.'”
[nesn.com]
