No getting the drop on him
A case can be made that All-Pro wide receiver Hopkins has the best hands in the NFL
DeAndre Hopkins spread his fingertips and palms to create an inviting target Monday night for Texans quarterback Deshaun Watson as the Texans’ star wide receiver displayed textbook passcatching form while adeptly navigating the sideline.
As the Texans’ star wide receiver maintained his balance and body control to remain inbounds, his eyes stayed fixated on the approaching spiral from Watson.
It was an incredible portrait of concentration, fundamentals and a knack for how to gather in a football from Hopkins. He never stopped staring at the incoming pass to execute another trademark acrobatic reception.
Hopkins has transformed catching a football into an art form, achieving a gold standard few NFL wide receivers reach.
The All-Pro selection has made a convincing argument that he has the best hands in the NFL.
Seventy-three times Hopkins has recorded a catch this season, piling up 1,024 yards and eight touchdowns. And Hopkins has yet to drop a pass out of his teamhigh 102 targets heading into a Sunday game against the Cleveland Browns, according to Pro Football Focus, the analyticsbased football site.
Keys to his success
Hopkins’ teammates and coaches marvel over the stellar manner in which the former firstround draft pick from Clemson catches a football and how he consistently does that better than anyone else in the league.
And they wonder aloud in conversations with the 26-year-old South Carolina native: What makes Hopkins the most effective pass-catcher in the NFL?
“We were working out and I asked him that same question,” Texans veteran safety Tyrann Mathieu said. “I said, ‘Did someone teach you how to catch or is it just your mindset that you don’t want to drop the ball?’ He said, ‘In my mind, I just don’t want to drop the ball.’
“I think that’s what really separates him, makes him special. It doesn’t have to be a pretty ball. It doesn’t have to be a perfect ball. It doesn’t really matter who’s throwing the ball. I think in his mind he just wants to catch it.”
Whether it was Hopkins’ astounding between-the-legs, leaping grab against the Miami Dolphins that ultimately didn’t count due to offsetting penalties or his left-handed sideline catch behind Jacksonville Jaguars Pro Bowl cornerback Jalen Ramsey or a multitude of other highlight-worthy receptions, the two-time Pro Bowl selection makes the truly difficult look downright easy. It isn’t that simple, of course. But Hopkins just makes it appear that way through his skill and determination to catch every pass in his vicinity.
“Oh yeah that’s got to be the mindset, especially if you want to be the best in this game at my position,” Hopkins said. “You have to feel like even if it’s sometimes the quarterback’s fault, it’s your fault. You’ve got to take that mentality and just kind of take control of what you can control. I can’t throw the ball to myself, but if my hands can touch it, I’m going to catch it.”
It doesn’t hurt, of course, that Hopkins has huge hands, measured at 10 inches at the 2013 NFL scouting combine, and long arms at 33 3⁄8 inches.
In his sixth NFL season, Hopkins has already caught 486 career passes for 6,889 yards and 44 touchdowns. He has the most receiving yards and touchdowns in franchise history through a player’s first six NFL seasons.
Only seven other players have caught at least as many passes or had as many yards and touchdown catches in their first six NFL seasons as Hopkins. It’s a distinguished fraternity that includes Sterling Sharpe, Marvin Harrison, Randy Moss, Torry Holt, Larry Fitzgerald, Calvin Johnson and A.J. Green.
At a muscular 6-1, 215 pounds, Hopkins has the requisite strength, route-running ability, vertical leap and toughness to hold an edge over the most athletic defensive backs in the NFL.
Hopkins has a huge catch radius. Any pass thrown near him, even an errant throw, has a chance for a completion.
“For sure, just throw it his way, he is probably going to come down with it,” said Watson, who has given Hopkins a reliable quarterback to work in tandem with after years of the wide receiver enduring a carousel of quarterbacks. “I try to be as perfect as I can, but for him, he just says, just get it in his area, he’s going to come down with it. That’s what I try to do, just throw it in his catchradius, and majority of the time he’s going to take it down. It helps me out big-time.”
Highlight reel catches
Throughout the season, Hopkins has repeatedly reinforced how advanced his level of expertise has become. Hopkins fills up highlight films with his penchant for circus catches, becoming a fixture on YouTube.
The way that Hopkins manages to tap his cleats in-bounds to avoid incompletions ruling is more proof of his well-practiced techniques.
“That just came over time,” Hopkins said. “That comes with practice and comes with feel and having guys in front of me do it like [retired former Texans Pro Bowl wide receiver] Andre ( Johnson).He was one of the best to do it that I’ve seen on the practice field every day. (Pittsburgh wide receiver) Antonio Brown and the other guys around the league, that affected me.”
How did Hopkins get so good at that aspect of the game? He simply did it over and over again until it became a strength of his repertoire.
“Practice, practice it,” Hopkins said. “You don’t go out there 100 times and just do ballerina dances, but the chances you get you make sure you get two feet in bounds.”
Hopkins can ambidextrously secure accurate and inaccurate throws with either hand. He has a way of finding just enough separation for a passing window. Even if he’s not really open, he’ll make the contested catch and pull down a throw by outmuscling a defender.
“He makes it look a lot easier than everybody else,” Texans Pro Bowl outside linebacker Jadeveon Clowney said. “I don’t see him drop too many. That’s what makes him different. He doesn’t drop too many balls.
“Other guys see a lot of drops, but he doesn’t drop a lot of balls. He’s always in bounds, finds a way to keep his feet in bounds. No matter where you throw it to him, he’s making the hard catches look easy. He’s a great receiver. I’m glad he’s on my team.”
Signed to a five-year, $81 million contract that includes $49 million guaranteed, Hopkins delivers a ton of game-changing plays.
That included an epic 49-yard catch-and-run in overtime earlier this season against the Dallas Cowboys where Hopkins kept spinning out of tackle attempts to position the offense for the gamewinning field goal.
Growing up in South Carolina, Hopkins was known more for his prowess as a defensive back than his work as a wide receiver. He intercepted 28 passes and scored five touchdowns on defense at D.W. Daniel High School in Central, S.C., catching 57 passes for 1,266 yards and 18 touchdowns for a state champion football team. He excelled in basketball, too. At Clemson, Hopkins concentrated on playing wide receiver and caught 82 passes for 1,405 yards and a school-record 18 touchdowns as a junior before declaring early for the NFL draft and being picked in the first round by the Texans.
“Growing up, I played outside,” Hopkins said. “I don’t really know what I did growing up, just had fun. I played defense growing up, so I was never really a receiver, to be honest with you, until I got to Clemson.”
Hopkins believes that catching a football the way he does blends a mindset of determination and the emergence of a developed skill. He declined to reveal any trade secrets, including which special drills he uses to hone his craft.
“I can’t give away my exercises, what I do, but it’s just playing football,” Hopkins said. “It’s just going out there and just having that instinct that wherever the ball is, you’re going to catch it.”