Fantasy Football Week 8 Wide Receiver Rankings: DeAndre Hopkins is a top-12 WR without reservations

DeAndre Hopkins creeps into the top-10 and a lot more

By Chris Towers

Oct 30, 2022 at 11:13 am ET • 2 min read

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Last week, I had DeAndre Hopkins as a top-12 wide receiver in my rankings almost by default. I still believed he could be an impact player for Fantasy purposes, but I wasn't sure. However, with the likes of Cooper Kupp, Justin Jefferson, A.J. Brown and Stefon Diggs all out on bye in Week 7, he ended up in my top 12 as much for a dearth of other options as for my faith in him. In Week 8, however, he's a top-10 option with no qualifications.

Hopkins returned from his six-game PED suspension last Thursday night and was immediately the focal point of the Cardinals offense – he had a 48% target share in the game! He caught 10 of the 14 passes thrown his way for 103 yards, as the desperate Cardinals leaned on him early and often. And why wouldn't they? With Marquise Brown suffering a foot injury that landed him on IR, the Cardinals needed Hopkins, and he turned in a vintage performance.

The Cardinals offense just makes so much more sense when Hopkins is healthy. That was true last season, and it's been true since he got there. Even in 2021, when his target share was much lower than we've gotten used to, Hopkins was still a key focus near the end zone, as he caught eight touchdowns on 64 targets. It wasn't clear whether his diminished overall usage was because the Cardinals simply wanted to spread the ball around or because Hopkins skill set had declined, but last Thursday's game sure made me think it was the former, rather than the latter.

Maybe this is all an overreaction to one game. The Saints were playing without start corner Marshon Lattimore, after all, and there's a difference between doing it once when everyone else is playing on a short week and being able to carry an offense week in and week out. But the thing is, we've seen Hopkins do that, as recently as 2020 when he averaged 10 targets per game for the Cardinals. I'm not expecting to see that level of Dominance from Hopkins again, but I do think he'll be a must-start Fantasy WR moving forward. And his ranking inside my top 10 this week reflects that.

Here are the rest of my rankings for Week 8 wide receivers, with notes on some of the most interesting players to rank.