The Titans first injury report of the 2024 season came out Wednesday, and only three players were listed.
Hopkins is the only starter, and luckily for Titans fans, he was the most promising of the bunch based on what the media was able to glean from practice.
DeAndre Hopkins
Hopkins went through the full team warmup and was a full participant during individual drills. He looked good accelerating off the line and getting in and out of his breaks. It was a short eye-test, but he passed in my book. His "limited" participation must have come during the closed portion of the day.
When Hopkins went down near the beginning of training camp, it was unclear whether he'd miss a couple of games or not. We'll see how the rest of his week shakes out, and we'll get a chance to speak to him as well, but this is certainly on the very front-end of his original injury timeline.
Based on his 2023 season in Tennessee, it's hard to be all that surprised by his timely return. It felt like this was the routine every-other week at times. Hopkins would suffer a minor injury in a game that threated to keep him out a week or two. Then we'd get to the middle of the week, and he's miss a practice or two. Sometimes, he'd miss all of them.
We'd speak to him on Fridays and get plenty of masterful non-answers. Tension with fans would be strung high heading into the weekend... until he was declared ready to go for Sunday. Almost without fail, he showed up when they needed him. And this time, he appears on track to do the same thing once again.
Jamal Adams
On the Jamal Adams front, however, there is much less optimism. One of the Titans newest additions, Adams is slated to serve as their rotational 3rd safety. But so far in Tennessee, we've not see him do... well, much of anything.
Adams told reports Wednesday he is "close", but he remains exclusively on the third side-field during practice.
Missing Adams in Week 1 is significantly less troublesome than missing Hopkins would be, but eventually, the veteran safety needs to contribute to prove the team made the right decision going out and signing him late in the offseason.
