Patriots' Surprising Playmaker Lands Huge Take

This surprising New England Patriots playmaker has earned a big take after a very productive 2024 NFL season.
Dec 15, 2024; Glendale, Arizona, USA; New England Patriots tight end Austin Hooper (81) against the Arizona Cardinals at State Farm Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images
Dec 15, 2024; Glendale, Arizona, USA; New England Patriots tight end Austin Hooper (81) against the Arizona Cardinals at State Farm Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images / Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images
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The New England Patriots had the worst set of skill position players in football this past season, but they were actually decent at one position: tight end.

Hunter Henry was one of Drake Maye's most dependable targets throughout the year, and the Patriots also had another tight end who was surprisingly productive: Austin Hooper.

New England signed Hooper in free agency last offseason, and the veteran went on to catch 45 passes for 476 yards and three touchdowns while registering a catch rate of 76.3 percent.

And all of that came as a No. 2 tight end.

Hooper was so effective, as a matter of fact, that Dalton Wasserman of Pro Football Focus named the 30-year-old the Pats' best free-agent addition of 2024.

"Hooper earned a team-high 75.5 receiving grade and ranked third on the team with 45 receptions," Wasserman wrote. "He proved that he can be an effective option in a team’s tight end room despite the mostly poor personnel around him."

Considering that Hooper was coming off of a miserable 2023 campaign with the Las Vegas Raiders in which he logged just 25 catches for 234 yards, the fact that he was able to rebound with the Patriots was definitely refreshing.

Hooper, who played his collegiate football at Stanford, was originally selected by the Atlanta Falcons in the third round of the 2016 NFL Draft.

He spent the first four years of his career with the Falcons and had a nice run there, making back-to-back Pro Bowl appearances in 2018 and 2019. Since then, however, Hooper's numbers have dipped considerably in time with the Cleveland Browns, Tennessee Titans and, most recently, the Raiders and New England.

Hooper will be a free agent once again this March, so we will see if the Pats decide to retain him.

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Matthew Schmidt
MATTHEW SCHMIDT

Matthew Schmidt is a sportswriter who covers NFL, MLB, NBA and college football and basketball. He has been writing professionally since 2011 and has also worked for Bleacher Report, FanRag Sports, ClutchPoints, NFLAnalysis.net and NBAAnalysis.net. He was born and raised in New Jersey and has a rather eclectic group of favorite teams: the Boston Celtics, New York Giants and Miami Marlins.