The Arizona Cardinals made a big move with the agreed trade for star receiver DeAndre Hopkins. He comes with proven production. He has been an All-Pro in each of the last three seasons, catching more than 95 passes each season and more than 100 in two of them.
However, even with that production, according to Touchdown Wire’s Mark Schofield, Hopkins is one of the players from the offseason who will benefit from being on a new team.
This is a great opportunity to flourish in a different offensive system. Bill O’Brien relied heavily on play-action designs and vertical concepts, and ran the football on 42 percent of Houston’s offensive snaps last season. However, they also mixed in some spread and some empty formations last year, as a way to get Deshaun Watson some quick reads and to create some mismatches and opportunities for Hopkins:
Take note of the coverage over Hopkins. Atlanta shows a Cover 4 alignment pre-snap with a safety giving Hopkins a ton of cushion. Watson spots this before the play, and comes right to Hopkins on a quick post route that the QB throws with pretty good timing and anticipation.
This kind of spread offense is what Hopkins will be entering next season with the Cardinals. Under Kliff Kingsbury, Arizona has been a spread-heavy, 10 personnel team that plays with tempo and throws the ball a ton. Last year they threw the ball on 60.4 percent of their offensive plays, putting them in the top half of the league and certainly more than the Texans. Kingsbury is going to spread the defense out, create space by alignment and mismatches by formation, and he is going to attack through the air. The offense is going to look a lot like the above example, and Hopkins is going to see a ton of targets as a result. Especially if they select a wide receiver with that eighth-overall selection.
Hopkins is used to being the main target on offense. He was targeted on nearly 29% of the Texans’ passing attempts, the second-highest rate in the league.
With Larry Fitzgerald, Christian Kirk and presumably Kenyan Drake, the Cardinals have a number of targets for quarterback Kyler Murray.
It might be possible that Hopkins gets fewer targets than with the Texans, but he will have more space with which to work. In 2019, he averaged a career-low 11.2 yards per reception. That number could go up, putting him at levels more like in 2013, 2014 and 2017.
An otherwise star receiver could actually be better in an offense that is designed to put up big numbers.
Listen to the latest from Cards Wire’s Jess Root on his podcast, Rise Up, See Red. Subscribe on Apple podcasts or Stitcher Radio.
Ep. 261
Ep. 260
