DeAndre Hopkins strained a knee in practice and "indications are he could miss four to six weeks," according to Titans beat writer Paul Kuharsky. He said it wasn't immediately clear when the injury occurred. ESPN's Turron Davenport shared a video of Hopkins going through individual drills with his left knee wrapped Wednesday afternoon.
Kuharsky: "I watched Hopkins leave the field late in practice Wednesday with the Titans' top medical guy, Todd Torischelli. But he had no discernible limp and I figured he was leaving for treatment, which he may have been."
The short end of this timeline would return Hopkins to the field with about a week to get ready for the regular season opener. Six weeks would return him to practice ahead of Week 2, but the Titans might exercise caution rather than push him to be ready for that one.
We'll obviously keep watching for more updates on the specifics of Hopkins' injury as well as his return timeline.
Losing Hopkins for any game time would leave free-agent addition Calvin Ridley a clear path to lead in targets, a role he could fill even when Hopkins is healthy.
It would also obviously leave targets for other Tennessee WRs. Hopkins ranked 12th at the position in target share last season.
Tyler Boyd and Treylon Burks would both likely benefit at least some from any Hopkins game absences. Burks might stand to be the biggest winner in that scenario.
The third-year WR has drawn positive reports out of camp but will struggle to find target share as long as Hopkins and Ridley are healthy.
Burks has been miscast as an outside-only WR through two years, though, after doing his best college work from the slot.
Outside of Hopkins, QB Will Levis would stand to lose the most by missing the veteran target hog. Levis has merely been a late-draft flier, though. So don't adjust any plans for him just yet.
We've knocked a game off Hopkins' projection for now, which drops him from 27th to 34th in our PPR rankings.
Ridley gets a slight boost from 35th to 33rd.
Boyd and Burks are sitting tight for now.
Expect Hopkins to dip further from what has been a value ADP so far. He sits WR39 in PPR redraft ADP as of this writing. A fall to the bottom of WR4 range (or lower?) would keep Hopkins an attractive stash through what doesn't sound like an overly serious injury (considering the timing).
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