DeAndre Hopkins Signs With Baltimore Ravens: Fantasy Football Impact On Lamar Jackson, Zay Flowers, And More
Ian Hartitz provides instant reaction and analysis to DeAndre Hopkins signing with the Baltimore Ravens, offering fantasy football impact for 2025.
After getting traded midway through the 2024 season to the Kansas City Chiefs, DeAndre Hopkins joins another Super Bowl contender and two-time NFL MVP Lamar Jackson on the Baltimore Ravens to shore up the team's WR corps.
How much does Hopkins have left in the tank in his illustrious career? Can Jackson help him party like it's 2020? Ian Hartitz breaks down this big move.
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DeAndre Hopkins SIGNS WITH THE BALTIMORE RAVENS
After a fairly quiet Day 2 of free agency, a big name has a new home: Longtime stud WR DeAndre Hopkins has signed with the Baltimore Ravens on a one-year, $6 million deal. The Ravens now represent Hopkins' third team in the last five months.
Obviously the best days of Hopkins' career are in the rear-view mirror—the man turns 33 in June after all—but it might be a bit too early to completely write-off the three-time All-Pro. After all, the artist known as Nuk has remained a pretty, pretty, pretty good separator even in his twilight years.
Hopkins' "Open Score" over the last five years:
- 2020: 69 (13th)
- 2021: 49 (67th)
- 2022: 63 (36th)
- 2023: 82 (5th)
- 2024: 70 (20th)
Now, that's not the end-all-be-all metric for evaluating WR play. Hopkins was far more average-to-mediocre in more traditional advanced stats like yards per route run (1.71, 44th) and targets per route run (22.5%, 37th). His -0.4 yards after the catch per reception over expected (9th worst among WRs) reflects the reality that we're not exactly looking at a coverage-altering talent these days.
That said: Hopkins' heat map of his receptions in 2024 (shoutout TruMedia) demonstrates this is still someone capable of winning in the intermediate areas of the field.
You can argue this is exactly where the Ravens needed some assistance with Zay Flowers typically being used more so as a low-aDOT YACster and Rashod Bateman normally serving as the field-stretching specialist.
Funny tendency of the Ravens to sign old washed-up receivers aside, can we at least agree Hopkins represents an upgrade over the likes of Tylan Wallace, Nelson Agholor, and Anthony Miller?! Those three combined for 63 snaps in the Ravens' season-ending defeat to the Bills!
Hopkins also provides the Ravens with some much-needed contested-catch ability that should come in handy in the red zone.
Contested catch rates in 2024 among 57 qualified WRs:
- Hopkins (54.2%, 20th)
- Flowers (50%, tied for 27th)
- Bateman (33.3%, tied for 54th)
FANTASY FOOTBALL IMPACT FOR RAVENS, Lamar Jackson, Zay Flowers, AND MORE
It'd be surprising to see Hopkins out-target either Flowers or Bateman in 2025. Hell, Mark Andrews will also probably be projected for more total pass-game opportunities if he's still on the roster, and the same would be true for Isaiah Likely if not. This is not a situation where we should expect Hopkins to all of a sudden regain prime form, but even an elderly version of his skill-set fills a need in a Ravens offense that was clearly hunting for this sort of archetype last year during their repeated attempts to make Diontae Johnson work.
All in all: The presence of Hopkins doesn't markedly change the outlook for Flowers (still a low-end fantasy WR2) or Bateman (boom-or-bust WR4). Lamar Jackson remains the overall QB1, and whoever his lead TE winds up being will likely be a weekly top-6 option at the position. Hopkins himself likely won't offer a ton of week-to-week consistency for those searching for big-time counting numbers, but his presence does make the Ravens offense just a bit more complete, which is all you can ask for when spending a mere $6 million in free agency.
Long story short: In a game of inches, the Ravens got themselves a WR3 capable of winning in different ways than the current players on their roster. Hell, yeah!
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