Ahead of the Tennessee Titans' season-opener against the Chicago Bears on Sunday, wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins went into more detail about his knee injury and it should have fans worried for his 2024 outlook.
According to Titans beat writer Paul Kuharsky, Hopkins admitted he's dealing with an MCL tear he suffered during the July 31 practice.
While he's going to try and play through it, the veteran wide receiver said the injury itself takes an entire year to heal and he will have to deal with pain.
“I had the MCL tear maybe four and a half, five weeks ago so the thing about those is it takes a whole year for them to heal,” he said. “Obviously it’s pain at that point.”
Hopkins has not had surgery on the knee, and he wasn't interested in talking about such a scenario.
“I don’t like speaking like that, I’m going to let you speak that,” Hopkins told Kuharsky.
In terms of his Week 1 status, Hopkins sounded optimistic that he would be out there but didn't give a definitive answer.
"Right now the way I feel, hopefully I can get out there Sunday and perform," DHop said.
This isn't Hopkins' first rodeo with an MCL tear. He suffered a Grade 3 during the 2021 campaign with the Arizona Cardinals, and it led to him missing the final six games after undergoing surgery.
Clearly, Hopkins' most recent MCL tear isn't as serious as that one, but one can't help but be worried that this is a ticking time bomb that could explode at moment.
Hopkins enters the 2024 campaign as the team's No. 1 option in the passing attack thanks to his success with quarterback Will Levis in 2023.
Thankfully, the Titans have beefed up their receiving corps. with the signings of Calvin Ridley and Tyler Boyd, but that would only somewhat soften the blow if Hopkins is forced to miss any amount of time.
Treylon Burks and Nick Westbrook-Ikhine would have to step up in that scenario, but both would obviously be significant downgrades from Hopkins.
