New scenery brings about new challenges for many people. I see this consistently at the high school level. I work at a charter school in California and kids from all over our city get a chance to join us. It’s a small school of about 500 students in total. That can be a big adjustment for a lot of students. Most are moving on from a K-8 where they were the top dog at a school. Now they get thrown into a school that is hyper-competitive and focused on getting them into advanced education aimed at the healthcare profession. This leads to a big struggle during their freshman year. Many of my upperclassmen have opened up about the changes that they had to make in order to be successful. They describe changing study habits, cutting out certain people in their lives, and dealing with new stress.
It’s not easy. Some have to leave because the new scenery just wasn’t right for them. They weren’t prepared for the new set up. They didn’t have the right tools to help them succeed just yet. It takes some students a few years to really get adjusted and start excelling. It is one of the reasons that colleges and universities care about your junior year so much. They figure that it takes a few years to adjust to high school and by your third year, you should be in your groove. This same issue with new scenery and settings can also be found in the NFL. It isn’t easy to switch teams and find instant success. We’ve seen that it takes certain positions some time to adjust to the new setting. This brings us to Deandre Hopkins.
DeAndre Hopkins is in Arizona and it has driven shares of Kyler Murray through the roof, but the question remains: does this help or hurt Hopkins? Hopkins has been one of the most reliable WR assets in fantasy sports for the last 3 years. He has finished no worse than WR5 overall in PPR leagues. He was already tied to an amazing young QB with Deshaun Watson. Will he have that same connection with Kyler? Is this move going to hurt him? The simple answer is yes. Between the personnel usage, enhanced competition, and downgrade in QB play: Hopkins will fall outside of the top 5 WRs next year and maybe even further than that. Let’s take a look at some of the specifics about Hopkins and how he will fit into the Arizona offense.
Routes, Personnel, and Competition
Hopkins ran nearly 47% of his routes from the slot last year. Hopkins ran 33% of his routes at the left flank. The remaining 19% was spent at the left flank. As we’ve learned from articles like this, playing in the slot makes your targets about 11.5 percent more valuable than outside targets. Over 57% of his targets came in the slot (stats via FantasyADHD). Hopkins was able to feast because of this. It put him up against some weaker competition and even linebackers. For example, Hopkins had 11 catches for 109 yards against the Raiders. I went back to the coaches’ film (shout out the NFL for making it free until May 31st), and I saw that Hopkins had 6 for 75 from the slot going against guys like Lamarcus Joyner (slot CB) and LBs who got isolated onto him. Hopkins is such a great route runner that putting him against inferior CBs and LBs makes it too easy. Houston really utilized that by putting him in the slot so often.
The problem is that Houston probably won’t be doing that. While many people expected Kliff Kingsbury to bring his “10” personnel (4 WR sets) to the NFL, that slowly started to drift away as the season progressed. NFL Game Stats and Information System showed that the Cardinals ran the “11” personnel (3WRs and 1 TE) more often. They ran 346 plays out of the 11 personnel and 317 out of the 10 overall. That means that there is only going to be one player in the slot for Arizona’s offense and that guy is Larry Fitzgerald. Due to his age, Larry is almost useless outside of the slot. He uses his route running ability and experience to help him in getting open against that weaker competition in the slot. It’s one of the reasons that Christian Kirk was kicked out to right flank for the majority of his routes. Kirk is an ideal slot WR for many teams. As seen below most scouts thought that is where he would fit best. Larry’s continued presence on the team is going to force guys like Kirk and Hopkins to play outside more. That could be a big issue.
It also means that because Kirk excels in the slot more than he does outside, we could see him chip into Hopkins slot targets when the Cardinals do run the 10 personnel. Hopkins is the best outside WR on the Cardinals. There isn’t any doubt about that. Since he is going to be playing on that Left Flank more often than not, that also means he will be facing most teams top CBs that are going to be able to shadow him. This is the list of CBs that Hopkins will likely have to face: Jalen Ramsey (2x), Shaquill Griffin (2x), Emmanuel Moseley (2x), Darius Slay, Tre’Davious White, Stephon Gilmore, and Bryon Jones. That’s going to make things a lot more difficult on Hopkins next year.
QB Downgrade
Some might think that Hopkins is an elite WR and he can handle elite cornerbacks. It’s not like he hasn’t faced some in the past. That is certainly true. But he faces another issue: downgrade in QB. Besides having to gain that trust and rapport with Kyler like he had with Deshaun. Deshaun was a more accurate QB, had a better true passer rating, true completion %, and completion% while being pressured. That last point is vital considering that Kyler was tied for the league lead in sacks last year.
Kyler doesn’t seem to pay much attention to his WRs lined up in the left flank. He only targeted them about 16% of the time last year. The reason for that might be that he had guys like Damiere Byrd and Trent Sherfield playing out there. It might be because he was young that he focused more on the slot guys that are going to give him easier throws usually. Kyler targeted the slot about 43% of the time last year. It was his bread and butter. Kyler was 25th in adjusted yard per attempt last year. It was much lower than Deshaun who was 12th. Kyler was not forcing the ball down the field a ton.
Now Kyler’s situation can be forgiven a bit because he was a rookie last year. That doesn’t mean that all of a sudden he can make huge strides and pass up Deshaun in those categories this year though. That’s going to have an impact on the productivity of Hopkins.
Conclusion
Hopkins might not be the locked and loaded Top 5 WR that we are used to next year. He faces some significant issues with the new scheme, talent around him, and quarterback. Many WRs that have gone onto new teams have traditionally struggled in that first year adapting. NumberFire did a study and found that less than 1/3rd of Top 30 WRs entering a new team surpassed their ADP that year. The study was going into the 2018 season so there are some even more recent cases like Odell Beckham that we can look at as well. This doesn’t mean that Hopkins can’t be a WR1 this year, but odds are that he would probably be on the back end of that. Keep that in mind as you go through these startup drafts right now.
Cresson Sorby
@Twooohnine