Start or Sit Austin Hooper in Fantasy Football Week Six?
Five weeks of the NFL season are in the books. This means that in most leagues, we have only eight weeks left of the fantasy football regular season. The bad news is that for some of us, the season is already over one-third gone. The good news is that we still have nearly two-thirds of the season left. Time to dig ourselves out of holes and make a serious run at the fantasy football playoffs. In order to help you with your fantasy football decisions, Football Absurdity keys in on some players every week on the fringes of startability and helps you decide what you should do with them. This week, we take a look at whether you should start or sit Austin Hooper, as the Atlanta Falcons face the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Austin Hooper is the forgotten man in Atlanta, alongside guys like Julio Jones and Calvin Ridley. We forget that Hooper was the #2 tight end prospect in 2016 (to Hunter Henry), and he did it on the back of his receiving chops. What we also forget, is that Austin Hooper’s combine shows that he was more athletic than Hunter Henry. Now, Hooper is getting targets, and we are still not sure if he can produce in the NFL. I tell you friends: he can, and he will. Hooper hasn’t had a large target share, or air yards share thus far this season. What he’s had is a highly efficient conversion of yards/targets to production. His RACR has been in the range of Zach Ertz and Delanie Walker (RIP) this season, the problem is targets.
He cleaned up that target problem last week, notching twelve targets after getting fifteen combined over the previous four games. Opposing offenses target the Bucs with the tight ends, with TEs getting the fourth-most targets in the league against the Bucs. That pushes their fantasy points allowed to TEs to a league-leading 16.75 per game. Try to name an Atlanta TE that isn’t Austin Hooper. Go ahead. This is an article, it’s not going anywhere, you have literally all day.
See, you can’t do it. That means most, if not all of that production is rolling up straight into Austin Hooper’s stat-line. Austin Hooper was quietly the more athletic of the big tight ends to come out of the 2016 draft class. On the back of finally getting an opportunity, he gets a team that showers opposing tight ends with fantasy points. Should that trend continue, Hooper has a great chance of ending the week as a top-five tight end. If you are in a jam due to byes, or if you don’t want to trust guys like Greg Olsen yet, or if your tight end has been hot garbage (Jordan Reed, what happened man?!), you may be looking to Hooper. If you are wondering if you should start or sit Austin Hooper this week… start the man.
If you have more fantasy football questions like “Start or Sit Mohamed Sanu?” then check out our other start/sits for the week:
Start or Sit Blake Bortles?
Start or Sit Jameis Winston?
Start or Sit LeSean McCoy?
Start or Sit Aaron Jones?
Start or Sit Mohamed Sanu?
Start or Sit Allen Robinson?
Start or Sit Jared Cook?
