Fantasy Football: Top 6 rookie tight ends for 2020 season

5. Brycen Hopkins, Purdue

Brycen Hopkins is the third-ranked tight end in this year’s rookie class according to both Pro Football Focus (pre-combine) and Sharp Football Analysis. He posted an impressive senior campaign, catching 61 balls for 830 yards and 7 touchdowns.

As pointed out by John Laub in his Draft Seminar focusing on Hopkins, the playmaker from Purdue posted an impressive 22 percent dominator rating (percentage of team’s total targets) and ran a varied route tree in college. However, his catch rate of 64 percent is a bit low; he needs to display better hands if he expects to command a high percentage of looks at the NFL level.

Hopkins does a lot of things well: he is fluid, athletic, and demonstrates contested-catch ability in the red zone, a critical skill for tight ends in fantasy football. Unfortunately, his upside in PPR limited by his propensity for dropping the football, as pointed out here by Pro Football Focus:

Hopkins won many accolades on the strength of his final season, including being named the first-team Big Ten All-Conference tight end, and winning first-team Associated Press All-American honors. However, Hopkins doesn’t project to be an in-line, every-down tight end due to physicality and blocking deficiencies, and his problematic drops are a concern that lingers as Draft Day approaches.