Cardinals WRs Hopkins, Fitzgerald in top 50 of PFF All-Decade team

Arizona Cardinals receivers DeAndre Hopkins and Larry Fitzgerald made Pro Football Focus’ All-Decade team for the 2010s ranked in the top-50, and now they can hope their productivity carries into the new decade.

Hopkins (30th) and Larry Fitzgerald (47th) join teammates Patrick Peterson (54th) and Chandler Jones (80th) on PFF’s list ordered by its grading system.

The two receivers were revealed Wednesday, while the top-24 will be released Thursday.

Fitzgerald, obviously, spent the entirety of the last 10 years in the desert, while Hopkins played his first seven NFL seasons with the Houston Texans before being traded this offseason to Arizona.

The things DeAndre Hopkins has been able to do with wretched quarterback play for the majority of his NFL career is scarcely believable. Despite seeing one of the highest percentage of contested targets over his career, Hopkins has dropped just 26 passes on over 1,000 targets. He’s arguably had the second-best hands of the decade after only Larry Fitzgerald, and while he may not have the same speed as some of the other receivers on this list, he has been well able to match them in spite of that.

Hopkins recorded seven touchdowns and 1,165 receiving yards in 2019, his fifth-straight season of being targeted more than 150 times.

Fitzgerald, the Cardinals’ leading receiver last year at age 36, pulled in 75 catches for 804 yards and four scores. He was targeted 109 times.

Over the entire decade, he had just 27 dropped passes from 1,347 targets, and he recorded more than 10,000 receiving yards despite regularly suffering substandard quarterback play. But for a brief respite from Carson Palmer in the middle of the decade, Fitzgerald has had precious little help from his quarterbacks over the past 10 years, yet he still produced with the best receivers in the game and even transitioned to the slot and back without even a hiccup in his game.

Is there an echo in here? Both their recent careers have been defined by great hands, periods of playing on teams with questionable quarterback play and production nonetheless.

Now teamed up with one another and playing with a promising young quarterback in Kyler Murray, it’s a wonder how the start of the next decade will shape the career arcs of Hopkins in his prime and Fitzgerald in what may or may not be his final season.

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