Rookie SWOT: Austin Hooper

Editor’s Note: As our coverage of the 2016 NFL Draft and its impact on fantasy football continues, we bring you our 2016 Rookie SWOT series. These articles will feature video highlights, combine reviews, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats, short-term expectations, long-term expectations and rookie draft advice for over 30 of the best dynasty league prospects from this year’s draft. We’ll follow that up with team-by-team draft reviews because, you know, that’s kind of what we live for.

Make sure you’re ready for your dynasty league rookie draft by staying up on all these articles, checking out our rookie draft guide, rookie rankings, rookie draft cheat sheet and mock draft rooms. There are simply no better resources out there for dynasty fantasy football enthusiasts.

Name: Austin Hooper

Born: November 4, 1994 (age 21)
Position: Tight End
Pro Team: Atlanta Falcons
College Team: Stanford
Draft Status: Third round, 81st overall

Combine Review

• Height: 6′ 4″
• Weight: 254
• Arm Length: 33¾”
• Hand Size: 10⅝”
• 10 Yard Dash: 1.63
• 40 Yard Dash: 4.72
• Bench Press: 19
• Vertical Jump: 33″
• Broad Jump: 117″
• 3 Cone Drill: 7.00
• 20 Yard Shuttle: 4.32
• 60 Yard Shuttle: 11.93
• Agility Score: 11.32

Video Clip

Strengths

• Above average agility and speed for a tight end.
• Runs solid routes with a knack for finding soft spots in zone coverage.
• Very good catch radius with excellent hands (hand size is 93rd percentile).
• “Go get it” type receiver with ball in the air.
• Experience from being in quality offense where he had to both receive and run block.

Weaknesses

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• Below average size; 28th percentile in height, 47th percentile in weight (mockdraftable.com)
• Can be slow off the line, needs space to accelerate.
• Needs work in route running, won’t create much separation, and relies on winning contested catches.
• As with most rookie tight ends, tempered expectations contributing in rookie season.

Opportunities

Hooper joins 31 year old Jacob Tamme in Atlanta, who is in the last year of his two year contract. Hooper would ideally be an understudy with some usage in year one, and then take control of the full time duties in the Falcons offense. With the current weapons the Falcons have, Hooper can thrive as a complementary piece and take advantage of the gaps in coverage created. When I evaluate landing spots for players, Atlanta is a more than favorable situation for Hooper.

Threats

Tight ends seem to have delayed production in the NFL, and also seem to be playing longer. Tight ends like Ben Watson, Antonio Gates, Jason Witten, Delanie Walker, and Greg Olsen are all producing around the age of 30 and in Gates’ case, 35. If Jacob Tamme maintains his solid production of 59 receptions and over 600 yards, it’s not inconceivable that the Falcons keep Tamme around on another short term contract. One of the hardest positions to stash players who aren’t producing is at tight end. Typically we covet our roster spots and use the fringe spots for high upside wide receivers. Hooper’s time to production may be longer than you’re willing to use up a roster spot for him.

Short-term Expectations

Since 2000, only 15 tight ends have caught more than 40 receptions in their rookie season, only four of them had five or more touchdowns. History simply isn’t on Hooper’s side to produce in his rookie season. A productive year two will likely hinge on Tamme not re-signing and Hooper getting the majority of the snaps at tight end.

Long-term Expectations

Eventually, I expect Hooper to take over the lead tight end role for Atlanta while Matt Ryan and Julio Jones are still producing a high volume pass offense. This situation is ripe for a pass-catching tight end to make contributions. 75 catches with 900 yards and multiple touchdowns would not be out of expectation for Hooper once he has his NFL legs under him.

NFL Comparisons

Using Rotoviz’s Box Score App, a couple of close NFL comparisons jumped out at me, Zach Ertz and Martellus Bennett. A former Stanford tight end, Ertz has similar size, speed, and college production as Hooper. Bennett at 6’6” is two inches taller and about ten pounds heavier; however like Hooper both can exploit soft gaps in zone coverage and make contested catches. Neither relies on route running to create separation. NFL.com has Coby Fleener listed as Hooper’s comparison, I personally don’t agree with that as Fleener is much more athletic than Hooper. Nor do I believe Fleener isn’t much of a run blocker that Hooper can develop into.

Projected Range for a Rookie Draft

So far in the rookie drafts that I have done, I have seen Hooper go in the late 2nd to early 3rd round range of 12-team drafts. Using Rotoviz’s Dyansty ADP app, culling MFL rookie drafts, Hooper has an ADP of 25.6 over 147 drafts, which would put him right at 3.01 in rookie drafts.

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