There’s been a lot of talk recently about Sammy Watkins. He’s the receiver from Clemson who’ll be the first wideout selected in the draft. Probably will go No. 2 or No. 3 overall.
But let’s turn our attention briefly towards another Clemson receiver. DeAndre Hopkins, recall, was the second wide receiver drafted last year, going 27th to the Texans. Both of these receivers played with the same quarterback and in similar offenses (Clemson averaged 333 passing yards per game last year, with 39 touchdowns; the previous year the team averaged 322 yards, with 40 touchdowns).
Looking at just their final seasons, Hopkins averaged 3 more yards per catch and caught 6 more touchdowns.
| Final Seasons at Clemson | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Player | No | Yards | Avg | TD |
| Hopkins | 82 | 1405 | 17.1 | 18 |
| Watkins | 101 | 1464 | 14.5 | 12 |
Both of these receivers are about the same size. Hopkins is 6-foot-1 and 214 pounds. Watkins is the same height and 3 pounds lighter.
Both, by the way, caught exactly 27 TD passes in three years playing for that team.
The reason Watkins will be selected much earlier is because he’s a far better athlete. He ran the 40 in 4.39. A year ago, Hopkins was at 4.53. And when you look at them play, the speed difference is evident. You’ll see Hopkins get run down from behind, and he usually has somebody right on him when he’s making catches.
Watkins is more like Julio Jones, exploding away from guys and getting way behind secondaries. (I’m aware that Hopkins averaged almost 3 more yards per catch, but watch the YouTube highlights.)
With Watkins, he looks like a No. 1 receiver. With Hopkins, his ceiling might be as a credible No. 2 receiver.
Hopkins has played a year, of course, and he had a credible first season – 52 catches for 802 yards. That’s OK, but not awesome. Too early to say for sure that he’s going to be a big star.
Since 2000, 20 rookies have had this kind of a first season – more than 700 yards but fewer than 900 yards. Of that group, 40 percent then went on to go over 1,000 yards in Year 2. Five of them fell short of 700 yards (they got worse). And the other seven finished in the 700-999 range; they stayed about the same.
For this study, by the way, I’m pulling from only guys selected in the first, second and third rounds. I don’t have the lower-tier guys in a sortable database.
The overall average for these 20 guys as rookies was 51 catches, 787 yards and 5.7 touchdowns. In their sophomore years, that average climbed to 60 catches, 916 yards and 7.1 touchdowns.
Those kind of figures suggest we can expect some improvement from Hopkins, but probably prudent to avoid getting too excited about him unless we see him really carving up secondaries in August.
This trend, by the way, also applies to the other notable rookie receiver in Texas last year. Terrance Williams had a nice first season for the Cowboys.
| MID-RANGE RECEIVERS IN SECOND YEAR | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Player | No | Yards | TD |
| 2012 | Josh Gordon | 87 | 1,646 | 9 |
| 2004 | Larry Fitzgerald | 103 | 1,409 | 10 |
| 2007 | Calvin Johnson | 78 | 1,331 | 12 |
| 2009 | Mike Wallace | 60 | 1,257 | 10 |
| 2012 | T.Y. Hilton | 82 | 1,083 | 5 |
| 2000 | Darrell Jackson | 70 | 1,081 | 8 |
| 2009 | Hakeem Nicks | 79 | 1,052 | 11 |
| 2001 | Rod Gardner | 71 | 1,006 | 8 |
| 2009 | Jeremy Maclin | 70 | 964 | 10 |
| 2006 | Santonio Holmes | 52 | 942 | 8 |
| 2009 | Percy Harvin | 71 | 868 | 7 |
| 2011 | Torrey Smith | 49 | 855 | 8 |
| 2009 | Kenny Britt | 42 | 775 | 9 |
| 2004 | Lee Evans | 48 | 743 | 7 |
| 2001 | Chris Chambers | 52 | 734 | 3 |
| 2004 | Roy Williams | 45 | 687 | 8 |
| 2011 | Greg Little | 53 | 647 | 4 |
| 2002 | Antonio Bryant | 39 | 550 | 2 |
| 2012 | Justin Blackmon | 29 | 415 | 1 |
| 2004 | Keary Colbert | 25 | 282 | 2 |
—Ian Allan