NFL Free Agency: Fantasy Impact of Austin Hooper to the Browns

Despite missing the most games of his career, Austin Hooper turned in a career-best 75 catches for 787 yards and six touchdowns in his fourth professional season. He finished as the TE3 on a per-game basis, averaging fewer PPR points per game than only Travis Kelce and George Kittle.

As a reward for his breakout season, the Cleveland Browns made Hooper the NFL's highest-paid tight end. Outside of the well-timed payday, nothing about Hooper's move to Cleveland can be viewed as positive from a statistical standpoint, though. The SportsLine model has Hooper making a minimal impact on Cleveland's projected win total, but what is the Fantasy impact of this signing?

Expect a Decrease in Playing Time and Targets in Cleveland

The driving force behind Hooper's strong 2019 Fantasy season was high volume while playing in Atlanta's offense. The Falcons ranked first in the NFL in pass-to-rush ratio, and Hooper's 7.2 targets per game ranked fifth among tight ends. Hooper also ranked sixth in red zone targets and third in end zone targets, while logging an 80 percent snap rate for the Falcons.

He'll now move to a Cleveland team that ranked just 18th in pass-to-rush ratio and 29th in total targets thrown to the tight end position. Oh yeah, they also still have a 2017 first-round investment in David Njoku at the tight end position. Njokju has struggled with injuries and inconsistency through the first two seasons of his pro career, but he has all the tools to be a strong contributor. Assuming the team hasn't given up on him and there's no trade coming, Njoku will be on the roster next year and demand at least 30-40 percent of the snaps.

Fewer Targets AND Less Catchable Targets

As if the role change wasn't enough, Hooper goes from a quarterback and offensive system that he has several years of familiarity with to a Browns offense that ranged from inconsistent to downright dysfunctional last year. He goes from Matt Ryan to Baker Mayfield.

Among 27 tight ends who saw at least 50 targets last year, Hooper ranked second with an 82.8 percent catchable target rate. Per PFF, only Jason Witten (84.1 percent) saw a higher rate of catchable targets. Only 69.1 percent of Baker Mayfield's throws to the tight end position were deemed catchable in 2019.

Fantasy Outlook

So, Hooper goes from the most pass-heavy offense in the NFL, where he had no competition for snaps, to a run-first offense, where he'll have to fend off a first-round pick for playing time and compete with several other options for targets from a less accurate quarterback. Not great, Bob!

It's early to give any sort of definitive ranking for Hooper, as we don't yet know how the depth chart situations will unfold for some of the other top Fantasy tight ends. Generally speaking, Hooper will see a massive drop in value after this signing. Instead of being a firm top-five Fantasy tight end, he should be viewed as more of a borderline top-12 option at the position going forward.