From BoB’s Burner: DHop’s Target Share

Since D-Hop became the number 1 option in Houston (2015) his average receiving target share of the offensive load is ~30.5%. I sourced this stat from pro football reference.

For a player as talented as Hopkins, the ball should be in his hands as much as possible so it makes sense that he is rewarded with that much of the offensive load. Unfortunately, his skillset is at odds with BoB’s offensive game plan which derives from his experience with the New England Patriots. In the Patriots system, it is more about identifying mismatches and taking what the defense gives you. If Hopkins is demanding the ball 30+ percent of the time because of his super star talent, his target share takes precedence over the game plan, and will likely hinder Deshaun’s development into a championship caliber player.

For fun, I pulled the top weapon’s target share of every season of Tom Brady’s career with the Patriots, and it came out to an average of ~24.13%. Therefore, offensively Hopkins is +6% on his career as the top target which is 25% more than the New England average.

Similarly, I pulled the last 20 years of super bowl data to see who the top weapons of super winning teams were, and interestingly the average target share was ~24.19%. Almost exactly identical to the New England average. Coincidence?

Moreover, look at the list of #1 receivers that are winning super bowls. I would affectionately call most of them “Gruden’s Grinders” type players. Where do you see guys like Odell Beckham Jr, Terrell Owens, Calvin Johnson, Antonio Brown, Julio Jones?

In hindsight, I do feel like Hopkins was a great piece for Deshaun’s development as a young quarterback. When Watson was in a pinch, he could just throw it up and hope Hopkins would make a play. Moving on from Hopkins feels like an evolution of DW4’s career, giving him the full keys to the franchise. Now there are no excuses, Deshaun needs to execute with a diversity of weapons, not just one.