It’s that time of year once again! Football Absurdity will bring you a breakdown of every notable fantasy football-relevant player throughout June, July, and August. We continue with the tight ends. Today, we take a look at a tight end who was once relevant and then went to tight end Siberia to chase a paycheck, and who might just be able to bounce back to fantasy football relevance. Will Austin Hooper be fantasy football relevant once again in Tennessee? Let’s take a look at his 2022 fantasy football player profile!
Austin Hooper ADP and AAV:
Average Draft Position: TE23, 165 overall
Average Auction Value: $1.0
Austin Hooper Statistics:
| Year | G | GS | Tgt | Rec | Yards | TD | Tgt/G | Rec/G | Rec% | Yds/Tgt | Yds/Rec |
| 2021 | 16 | 16 | 61 | 38 | 345 | 3 | 3.81 | 2.38 | 62.3% | 5.66 | 9.08 |
| 2020 | 13 | 13 | 70 | 46 | 435 | 4 | 5.38 | 3.54 | 65.7% | 6.21 | 9.46 |
| 2019 | 13 | 10 | 97 | 75 | 787 | 6 | 7.46 | 5.77 | 77.3% | 8.11 | 10.49 |
| Year | Std Pts | HPPR Pts | PPR Pts | Pts/G | HPPR Pts/G | PPR Pts/G | Pts/Tgt | HPPR Pts/Tgt | PPR Pts/Tgt |
| 2021 | 54.5 | 73.5 | 92.5 | 3.4 | 4.6 | 5.8 | 0.89 | 1.20 | 1.52 |
| 2020 | 67.5 | 90.5 | 113.5 | 5.2 | 7.0 | 8.7 | 0.96 | 1.29 | 1.62 |
| 2019 | 116.7 | 154.2 | 191.7 | 9.0 | 11.9 | 14.7 | 1.20 | 1.59 | 1.98 |
| Year | Air Yards | aDOT | YAC | YAC/Tgt | YAC/Rec | AYMS | Tgt MS |
| 2021 | 332 | 5.35 | 185 | 3.03 | 4.87 | 9% | 14% |
| 2020 | 451 | 6.44 | 174 | 2.49 | 3.78 | 13% | 18% |
| 2019 | 634 | 6.5 | 335 | 3.45 | 4.47 | 15% | 18% |
2022 Austin Hooper Overview:
This is a weird one for me because the Titans have a history of utilizing the tight end (Delanie Walker, Jonnu Smith, and they ranked in the top-half in tight end target rate (just 0.1% behind San Francisco). But, they haven’t turned in a consistently good tight end for fantasy football since Delanie Walker. Now, they have a solid weapon to turn to in Austin Hooper, who shouldn’t just be a good tight end but should be the second-or-third pass-catching weapon depending on the relative health of Treylon Burks (who is suffering from asthma complications in camp) and Robert Woods (who is recovering from a mid-season ACL tear).
That would leave Hooper with little-to-no target competition, and the last time we saw a highly-targeted Austin Hooper was in 2018 and 2019 in Atlanta, where he turned 185 targets over the course of two seasons into 146 receptions, 1,447 yards, and ten touchdowns. Hooper also ranked as TE6 in both seasons. That means that there is an upside there. Unfortunately, the downside of Hooper comes from the fact that we have no idea if the Titans’ offense is hot garbage. After all, three of their top four weapons (Woods, Burks, and Derrick Henry) all have health questions. That leaves Austin Hooper as their top, healthy option, and Nick Westbrook-Ikhine as the top option behind him. Things are bleak with Tennessee, but they looked just as bleak last season, and the Titans still finished as the #1 seed in the AFC playoffs. So, the odds that they’ll be terrible are low, but unfortunately, so are the odds that they’ll be an offensive powerhouse.
2022 Austin Hooper Fantasy Football Draft Strategy:
Austin Hooper Salary Cap Value: $0
Draft Ranking: Find out for your league settings in a Beersheet!
If you’re in a deep roster league, you probably want Austin Hooper on your squad, since he will get enough volume to back into some productive weeks in Tennessee. But, if you’re in a 12-team, 15-round draft, there’s no real reason to draft Austin Hooper. While his ADP (TE23/168 overall, $1 in salary cap drafts) is much lower than guys like Gerald Everett (147), Evan Engram (155), and Cole Kmet (130), you’re still looking at the same type of player: a double-digit round TE2 who can potentially break out and help your squad. But, the inherent ADP discount does not exist in a league where there aren’t enough picks for it to matter. In a 12-team, 15-round draft (minus two rounds for kicker and DST), there are 156 picks. So if a guy’s ADP is 147, 155, or 168, it doesn’t matter. You’re choosing between these players, and taking the discount is passing on better players.
Don’t draft Austin Hooper in a regular-sized league. In deeper leagues, however, he’s a nice soft pillowy landing as a TE2 in deeper leagues to insulate you from having to dig into the Tyler Conklins and Tommy Trembles should something happen to your TE1.
Best Case Scenario:
Austin Hooper returns to form and firmly implants himself into The Blob once again, finishing between TE10 and TE15.
Worst Case Scenario:
Quick, who was the starting TE for the Titans in 2021? Exactly.
Check out all our 2022 player profiles, here.
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[Statistics are sourced from pro-football-reference.com, airyards.com, and ftnfantasy.com]
[Image Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b5/Austin_Hooper_Browns-Steelers_OCT2021_%28cropped%29.jpg, cropped under CC BY SA 2.0]
