Hayden Hurst Fantasy Football Outlook (2020)

By Mike Tagliere (FantasyPros), Wed, Aug 26th 2020, 6:56am EDT

When projecting Matt Ryan for somewhere in the neighborhood of 620-plus pass attempts, you need to disburse them somewhere. The Falcons didn't even make an offer to Austin Hooper but decided to spend a second-round pick to acquire Hurst from the Ravens. It's clear they view him as someone who can step right into Hooper's role. It may take some time for Hurst to get acclimated to the new offense with a shortened offseason, but Hooper's role was massive last year. He totaled 97 targets in just 13 games, which was a pace of 119 targets on a full 16-game season. Did you know that of the 116 tight ends who've seen more than 85 targets the last 10 years, that 97 of them finished as top-12 tight ends? That's an 83.6 percent success rate and it seems highly likely that Hurst is going to hit that. Move that number up to 90 targets and it's a 92.4 percent success rate. One of my bold predictions this year is that Hurst finishes as a top-five fantasy tight end. Don't think he was bad because he was playing behind Mark Andrews, one of the best tight ends in the league.