Analysis
7/17/23
4 min read
Fantasy Football 2023: DeAndre Hopkins Is Bonafide WR2 with Titans
DeAndre Hopkins is coming off a season where he ranked 10th in receiving yards per game, ahead of notable players such as Travis Kelce, Amon-Ra St. Brown and DeVonta Smith.
He also tied his career low in yards per reception at 11.2. However, when diving deep into the way he was used, it makes sense as to why this was the case.
While Hopkins' days as a fantasy football WR1 are likely behind him, he should be a consistent WR2 moving forward.
DeAndre Hopkins Fantasy Breakdown
Notable 2022 Statistics
Hopkins' career low in yards per reception can be traced back to his route tree.
Since 2018, there have been 104 wide receivers who had hook routes account for more than 25 percent of their route tree. In 2022, Hopkins ranked in the 98th percentile on yards per route run (YPRR) on this specific route. The average at the wide receiver position is 1.43 YPRR.
Thirty-seven percent of his targets were derived from hook routes, which do not contribute to high yards per reception. This explains why he tied a career low in that metric.
While Hopkins ran a considerable number of vertical routes during his tenure with the Arizona Cardinals, his performance in terms of yards per route run on these routes was relatively modest, averaging 1.70 YPRR.
Among wide receivers who run at least 20 percent of their routes as vertical routes and have run over 200 routes, the average YPPR is 1.37. Hopkins ranks in the 60th percentile in this category.
Note: The graph only includes targets versus single-high coverage, which refers to having one safety back. While Hopkins and Marquise Brown were teammates, they didn't play all their games together due to injury. This gave both receivers the opportunity to attract a high percentage of targets.
When facing single-high coverage, passers heavily targeted Hopkins, and he proved to be relatively efficient when receiving these targets. As he moves to an offense with a running back of the caliber of Derrick Henry, Hopkins will benefit from being the primary target against this look.
In 2022, Hopkins showed he could be the guy to find the soft spot in the zone coverage and win off of that. He also displayed the ability to be an effective player and heavily targeted against single-high looks. In 2023, Hopkins will likely produce similarly, although his production may be hindered by the Tennessee Titans' passing game.
2023 Fantasy Outlook
In Tennessee, Hopkins lands in an offense whose coach fired his offensive coordinator and promoted his passing game coordinator, Tim Kelly. Kelly worked with Hopkins as the Houston Texans' offensive coordinator in 2019. Hopkins may not be the player he was then, but there are some reasons to be optimistic about his 2023 outlook.
The threat of Henry in the run game should open up single-high looks. Ryan Tannehill ranked third in the NFL, averaging 8.9 yards per attempt against this look.
Tannehill loved Treylon Burks against this coverage — he was very effective against this look averaging 3.05 YPRR. Hopkins is likely to lead the team in target share against this look, but Burks will probably be the leader in YPRR.
In the Titans' offensive scheme, Tennessee will expect Hopkins to fulfill the role of a reliable chain mover. During games, when the team is trailing, he will likely maintain a high catch rate while recording lower yards per reception. Burks will play as the main deep option and have the explosive weeks.
Hopkins will do this by getting open on that hook route. Tannehill targets the hook route on 22.2 percent of his passing attempts, which ranks as the 10th-most targeted route among quarterbacks with at least 1000 attempts since 2018. If the deep shot is not open off of play action, Tannehill will throw to his check down, with Hopkins being the primary target.
Hopkins can provide a consistently high weekly floor from a fantasy football perspective. In scenarios where the Titans are in negative game scripts, he will have an elevated reception total that could lead to massive fantasy production.
Hopkins should be a WR2 with a safe floor, and he's likely to finish with more than 1,000 yards receiving, though unlikely to push past 1,200.
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