Houston Texans: DeAndre Hopkins could reach a new level
With Deshaun Watson at quarterback and hopefully healthy, Houston Texans star wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins could go to new heights.
There’s no question that Houston Texans wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins has established himself as one of the best players at the position in the NFL. Throughout his first five seasons in the league, he’s never amassed fewer than 802 yards in a season and has three seasons of over 1,200 yards.
And it only appear that Hopkins is coming into his own even more. In 2015, he caught an absurd 111 passes for 1,521 yards and 11 touchdowns. Then, following an overall forgettable 2016 campaign for the Texans, Hopkins then caught 96 balls for 1,378 yards and 13 touchdowns in only 15 games last season.
Even crazier though, Hopkins could be even better with the quarterback position now stabilized in Houston with the arrival of Deshaun Watson and his return from injury.
George Chahrouri of Pro Football Focus recently offered this nugget about the throws that Hopkins has been seeing over the past two seasons. Put simply, there has been a distinct lack of accuracy in regards to his targets:
DeAndre Hopkins has seen an accurate throw on 39% of targets the last 2 seasons. That’s the lowest in the NFL and 14% lower than AB and 18% below Julio. The Brockening was real.
— George Chahrouri (@PFF_George) July 17, 2018
Even crazier is the fact that six games over those past two seasons were with Watson at quarterback. That’s how bad Brock Osweiler and Tom Savage were for the Texans. And yet, Hopkins has still been able to establish himself as one of the league’s best.
In the six games that Watson started last season, Hopkins was beastly in terms of his production as he put up 38 receptions, 551 yards and six touchdowns while being targeted 60 times. Extrapolated over a 16-game season, that would give Hopkins 1,469 yards and 16 touchdowns.
What’s important to note about that though is that Watson could potentially be better than he was as a rookie. No, he might not put up the record-setting statistics that he did, but in terms of his ability as a passer, there’s reason to believe that a player with his work ethic and talent could progress from year one to two.
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If that does happen — and if he can stay healthy — we could see a monstrous season from Hopkins in 2018. He has proven to this point that he can succeed and be among the league’s elite despite subpar quarterback play. Giving him something above that in terms of the guy throwing him the football could truly unleash a new level of DeAndre Hopkins.