Five-time All-Pro wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins is spending this week at the New England Patriots’ facility, not to catch passes but to learn what life looks like on the other side of the whistle.
Head coach Mike Vrabel confirmed Hopkins’ presence during a pre-training camp press conference Friday, saying the 34-year-old reached out about observing the coaching staff and personnel department as he weighs a transition from playing to coaching.
“DeAndre Hopkins is here with us just to kind of check things out as far as what he wants to do as far as coaching,” Vrabel told reporters. “You’ll see him on the field.”
Vrabel said Hopkins asked to hang around for a few days, prompting the coach to call the league office to clear the arrangement. “I called the league to make sure that was going to be okay, and then I invited him back,” Vrabel said. “That’s where he’s been the last couple of days, and he’ll be here for the next couple of days.”
The connection between the two runs deep. Vrabel joined the Houston Texans as linebackers coach in 2014, when Hopkins was a second-year receiver coming off a 1,200-yard breakout. They reunited in Tennessee during the 2023 season, when Hopkins posted 75 catches for 1,057 yards and seven touchdowns in Vrabel’s final year as Titans head coach. That production came on a six-win team — a detail that tells you what Hopkins could still do when the offense around him was held together with duct tape.
Hopkins has not formally announced his retirement. Vrabel, however, was blunt about why the receiver is in Foxborough. “He is coaching from here on, and he is helping the offensive coaches and work with the personnel guys,” Vrabel said. “He loves football. People that love football and have played the game for the length of time that he did, once they explore the opportunities and what that looks like once his playing career is over.”
Hopkins’ résumé — 1,046 receptions, 13,770 yards, 87 touchdowns across 204 regular-season and playoff games with the Texans, Cardinals, Titans, Chiefs, and Ravens — is the kind that gets a man a coaching internship on reputation alone. But the fit with Vrabel is what makes this more than a ceremonial visit. Hopkins praised Vrabel’s culture-building as recently as last December, when he was a Ravens receiver preparing to face the Patriots and told reporters that New England’s turnaround from back-to-back four-win seasons was no surprise. “They play Vrabel ball,” he said, “and that’s solid football.”
The Patriots’ wide receiver room, coached by Todd Downing, heads into camp with offseason additions A.J. Brown and Romeo Doubs as the headline names, joined by returners Mack Hollins, Kayshon Boutte, DeMario Douglas, and Kyle Williams. Twelve wideouts are scheduled to take the practice fields Saturday at 10:15 a.m. ET — with one of the most productive pass-catchers of his generation watching from a different angle than he’s used to.
Sources:
Mike Reiss, Bluesky
Yahoo Sports
Patriots Wire / USA Today