Which running back would you rather have
Fournette
Mccaffrey
Mixon
Cook
Gordon
I don't think the slam dunk answer is Gordon. Forget start up adp, if we had a simple poll of who is YOUR favorite from this group, do you think Gordon gets over 50% of votes?
So this trade comes down to would you rather have, 1.12 and a playoff future first or Hopkins. And again, that chimes down to preference. In 4 years Hopkins has 317 receptions for 4487 yards and 23 touchdowns. That's
79/1122/5.7, which is basically the same as his second best season in that time (
76/1210/6). Last season he had just 78/954/4.
When you give two firsts for him it's because you're hoping for an encore of his monster
111/1521/11 season in 2015, but that looks like a massive outlier. He had 192 targets that year. For comparison, Mike Evans led the league in 2016 with 171 targets. Can he get there again? Doubtful. He was their only real weapon that year especially once Foster missed over half of the season. They've since added Will fuller and Braxton Miller, Lamar Miller, don'ta foreman and had cj fiedorowicz emerge.
So its unlikely he'll get 192 targets again. 111 receptions on 192 targets is just a 57.8% catch rate. Not great. He caught 78 of 151 last year - 51.6%. He's never broken 60%. You really need him to be up around 160 targets to get 90 receptions again - which is no lock.
He averages 14 yards a catch, which is nice if he's getting a huge number of catches, but 80 catches at 14 yards a catch is 1120 yards. Not bad but not really worth two firsts. And in 4 seasons he has 4, 11, 6 and 2 touchdowns. Even if you assume his best case, 11 touchdowns in 111 catches rate from 2015, you're probably looking at closer to
80/1120/8 with maybe
90/1260/9 upside.
And that's if you expect him to have upside. The good news is he's young - he just turned 25 this month. The bad news is the franchise just gave up two first round picks to take Watson. Maybe they're really sure he's the guy, but just last year they were really sure Brock was the guy and gave him a contact so big they had to give a second round pick just to get rid of him. I'm not super confident in their ability to pick or develop quarterbacks. In a year when no quarterback went number one overall - usually not a good sign, especially if the team with 1.1 needs one - and when the consensus was that none of these guys was NFL ready, they gave up enough to get Watson that they're unlikely to take another qb for 3+ years.
So I get that Hopkins had his best season with a mediocre Hoyer and that he had a 1500 yard season at age 23. But you're probably more realistic hoping for an
80/1120/8 guy going forward
It's he worth more than two late firsts? Sure, on name value alone you can probably get more than that in most leagues. But that, plus the chance to trade Gordon for a guy you like better, is a decent deal.