Every NFL season, there are a number of players that gain massive hype and shoot up Fantasy Football draft boards, only to disappoint because expectations were too high. Conversely, there’s a similar group of players who fall in fantasy drafts and become late-round steals. My goal of this series is to look past the popular sentiment, share some statistics, and offer a contrarian opinion for you to consider before drafting a player too early or fading someone too hard in your 2020 Fantasy Football drafts.
The Subject: Austin Hooper – TE, Cleveland Browns
Austin Hooper had his true breakout season in 2019, but because of late-season injuries and the emergence of other tight ends like Mark Andrews and Darren Waller, his success has been overshadowed. Despite becoming the highest-paid tight end in the league by signing with the Cleveland Browns back in March, many analysts are fading Hooper based on his situation. As of June 3rd, he is currently ranked as the TE9 in PPR for 2020 based on FantasyPros Expert Consensus Rankings, and his ADP on Fantasy Football Calculator has his stock fading even further…
PPR TE ADP Snapshot
Over the past month, Austin Hooper's ADP on @FFCalculator has fallen below the likes of Tyler Higbee, Hayden Hurst and JARED COOK.
Idk about y'all but that's a Value in my book. #Browns pic.twitter.com/cs9wI419bY
— Andrew Mackens (@AndrewMackens) June 1, 2020
Given all the negative sentiment I’ve seen towards Hooper’s fantasy outlook in 2020, I thought I’d use this Devil’s Advocate to spin toward the positive and share some reasons why Austin Hooper could end up being a value pick in your 2020 drafts…
Per fantasydata.com, Austin Hooper was the TE6 in PPR scoring in 2019 with 191.7 points.
This was 24.2 PPR points more than the TE7 Jared Cook. Hooper achieved this number on only 13 games played. His 16-game pace for 2019 had him earning 230.9 PPR points, which would have made him the TE2 in 2019, behind Travis Kelce and above George Kittle.
Fantasy managers might see this as a an aberration for Hooper, but in 2018, he also finished as the TE6 with 163 PPR points, which would have made him the TE8 in 2019.
Per Pro Football Reference, Austin Hooper has improved in targets, receptions, and yards per game (YPG) every year of his career.
Generally speaking, seeing an NFL player’s stats increase year over year is a good thing. Especially with what we know about how it takes new tight ends in the NFL time to develop and find their role in an offense, I find Hooper’s growth to be nothing other than promising for his future outlook.
Austin Hooper’s career catch rate of 77.3% leads all tight ends with a minimum 100 career receptions. In 2019, Hooper had just one drop on 97 targets.
While it was included in the chart above, I want to highlight catch rate as something that is going to particularly help Hooper on his new team in Cleveland. Per footballdb.com, The Browns were in the bottom 25% in total first downs, bottom half in passing first downs, and bottom half in third down efficiency. There are a multitude of factors that go into how the Browns struggled last year, but I believe if you are paying a player $44 million and making them the highest-paid at their position, you plan to use them in ways that will improve those team metrics. Hooper is a target you can trust on third down, and his reliability is going to keep the Browns on the field and increase their number of scoring opportunities.
At 25 years old and heading into his age-26 season, Austin Hooper is in the prime of his career.
As previously mentioned, it takes a couple years before tight end prospects truly become productive in the NFL, and it’s our job as analysts to identify who has made the leap into top receiving tight end status, as well as who will make that leap in the coming years.
Based on the chart above created by our Director of Analytics @BlakeAHampton, the average tight end’s best years for fantasy production are 25 & 26. Austin Hooper is thriving in his prime age range right now, and I don’t expect a change in situation to take that prime away from him.
Verdict
Because of his superior catch rate, Hooper comes in as an immediately reliable target for Baker Mayfield in a number of situations, particularly on third down and in the red zone. Between Hooper’s catching ability and new Head Coach Kevin Stefanski’s ability to design separation via play action, I’m confident in the opportunity available for Hooper to have the impact we come to expect from him this fantasy season.
I’m not going crazy and reaching for Hooper in the middle rounds, given we do expect the Browns will be a run-heavy team. But with the tight end landscape appearing to break out into A) elite players that you must invest top draft capital in, and B) late-round breakout candidates that could just as easily bust, Hooper provides a happy medium of proven talent and production for a reasonable price. Right now, Hooper is the value no one is talking about.
