LA Rams have big plans for tight end Brycen Hopkins in 2021

The Hopkins factor

Brycen Hopkins has had a year on the LA Rams roster. While that did not result in much on the football field, it’s had a tremendous effect on developing and maturing the young man. After all, he was essentially a red-shirt rookie for the Rams. With little time to familiarize new players to the NFL, the Rams essentially redshirted the crop of rookies who showed enough promise to be future contributors.

But with so little time available to them, the Rams made snap decisions on who would be groomed for roles in 2020, and who would be brought along at a slower pace, with the objective to show up ready to go in 2021. Hopkins is on that scenic route. He was brought on at a slower pace. He was given more time to digest the playbook, the coaching staff, the depth chart, and his teammates. And now he’s ready to show what he can do.

But then there is the timing that could not be better. Hopkins will be rotating in with the LA Rams starters just as Matthew Stafford begins to work with the offense. And without any prior years’ familiarity, Hopkins could quickly become a favored target of Stafford.  From what we’ve seen and read about Hopkins’s ability to make circus catches, this has all the makings of a tried and true connection throughout the 2021 NFL season.

Hopkins is young, motivated, and eager. He is a blank slate, with all the potential mistakes or promises that come with any new NFL rookie.  But he has a year under his belt. A year of learning the Rams system and of hitting the ground running.  I won’t set a high mark for his rookie season. Not in Sean McVay’s offense.

But I can expect that Hopkins could contribute 400 yards receiving and five touchdowns in his NFL debut.  Is that enough? It was the most that the Rams got out of departing veteran TE Gerald Everett. That makes it a great starting point from which to debut in the NFL.