Hopper's Average Looks Fine at 72. He's Bled $133k in Value Since Round 1. Eight Straight Sell Verdicts Haven't Changed.
Jacob Hopper is averaging 72 and clearing breakeven — looks like a hold. But he has bled $133k in value with eight straight sell verdicts. Here is why the average is a trap.
Hopper's Average Looks Fine at 72. He's Bled $133k in Value Since Round 1. Eight Straight Sell Verdicts Haven't Changed.
The average says hold. The cash gen says you're losing $5,787 every week you wait.
Jacob Hopper is the kind of player who looks respectable in a quick glance at the stats page. Averaging 72.3 at 354k-ish, BE of 52 — clearing it more often than not. If you're eyeballing averages, he looks like a quiet hold.
The registry disagrees. Eight consecutive sell verdicts, dating back to R5, with confidence peaking at 9. Here's why.
The Average Is Lying to You
Hopper's 72.3 average is propped up by scores in games where Richmond were being demolished. His 81 in R7 came in a 54-point home loss to Melbourne. His 74 in R10 came in a 36-point loss at Docklands. His 56 in R12 came in a 114-point annihilation by Sydney at the SCG.
Garbage time flatters midfielders on losing teams. When the game is gone and the opposition takes the foot off, the contested ball dries up and Hopper picks up uncontested possessions that pad the box score. Strip out the context and those above-BE scores look hollow.
His R8 score of 49 tells you more — Richmond actually won that game (11-point win over West Coast) and he fell 23 short of his 72 BE. When the game mattered and both teams were competing, he couldn't produce.
The Cash Bleed Is Real
From 487k in R1 to 354k now. That's 133k in value destroyed — roughly 5,800 bucks a week haemorrhaging from your salary cap while you hold.
Cash gen at -$5,787 per week means every round you keep Hopper, you're effectively paying 5.8k for the privilege of watching him score in the 50s and 60s when games are competitive. That money could be sitting in a cash cow generating value or funding a genuine premium upgrade.
The community read on him is brutal. Multiple threads have called him "not AFL standard" and a "list clogger" — strong language for a player averaging 72, but the eye test matches the data.
The Trap
Here's why coaches hold: the 72 average clears his 52 BE on paper. It looks safe. The breakeven math says he's generating value. But the cash gen number tells the real story — his price is falling faster than his scoring covers, and at -$5,787/wk, that gap is accelerating.
Every above-BE score in a blowout loss gives you permission to hold for one more week. That's the trap. You're holding a declining asset in a declining team, watching the price erode while the average whispers "it's fine."
It's not fine. The 49 in a win is the real Hopper. The 81 in a 54-point loss is the mirage.
The Call
Sell Hopper this week. The registry has been saying it since R5 and every round of data since has confirmed the call. At 354k he still has enough value to fund a meaningful sideways trade or downgrade to a cash cow generating positive returns.
If you've been holding because the average looks decent, zoom out: 133k in value gone, negative cash gen accelerating, community consensus overwhelmingly negative, and a Richmond side that shows no signs of competing consistently. The longer you wait, the less you get back.
Updated: 22 June 2026. Data sourced from RookieBible intel registry.
Think we're wrong about Hopper? Our SuperCoach coach has his full season narrative, every score, every community thread. Pre-briefed. Opinionated. The more you challenge it, the sharper it gets. Ask Our Coach →
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