The Kansas City Chiefs won the Super Bowl without a star wide receiver, but they could reportedly make an elite offense even scarier by acquiring DeAndre Hopkins.
NFL insider Benjamin Albright told PHNX Cardinals that Kansas City is the "primary suitor" for Hopkins. He doesn't know the draft compensation the Cardinals would receive, but he said it's more likely they get a second-round pick than a first.
After the 2022 season, theScore's Jordan Schultz reported that the Cardinals plan to trade Hopkins this offseason.
Arizona hired a new general manager and head coach after a disappointing four-win season, and Hopkins is set to make $19.45 million (with a $30.75 million cap hit) in 2023. The Cardinals could seek a clean slate by moving the three-time All-Pro wideout, who turns 31 in June.
Hopkins began his Cardinals career by tallying 1,407 yards and six touchdowns in 2020. However, multiple lower body injuries limited him to 10 games in 2021, and he served a six-game suspension to start the 2022 season for violating the NFL's PED policy.
Yet he remains an impact player when on the field. Hopkins totaled 474 receiving yards in six full games with quarterback Kyler Murray last season.
Now imagine what he can accomplish when catching passes from Patrick Mahomes.
The Chiefs flourished without a star replacement for Tyreek Hill, but they could still benefit by solidifying the position this offseason. JuJu Smith-Schuster is a free agent after garnering 78 catches for 933 yards on a one-year deal. The depth chart features several talented question marks in Mecole Hardman, Kadarius Toney, and Marquez Valdes-Scantling.
Adding Hopkins could be great news for Kansas City, but terrible for all opposing defenses.
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Originally Posted by Chris Meck:
The RB's scored so many TD's because defenses tended to drop 7 and sometimes 8. That means you've got a RB either unaccounted for or with a LB on him. It's a mismatch. You literally try to design offenses to find opportunities like that. It's not a bug, it's a feature.
It's got nothing to do with the WR play, other than if it were WORSE by a significant margin, that mismatch might go away as defenses wouldn't drop all those guys into downfield zones.
There's nothing wrong with RB's scoring a lot of TD's in '22. It means Mahomes was running the offense the way it is designed. No, it's not designed to feature the RB's and I think you know that so stop saying it. It's designed to force mismatches, and if they're dropping 7 and sometimes 8 then you're going to have nobody on a back in the flat, or perhaps a LB who cannot keep up with Mckinnon or Pacheco. It's making the defense pay for that scheme. It's not a problem, it's smart football.
They'll probably score a lot in '23 too, so get ready to be heartily disappointed. Imagine! Being disappointed by RB's who score TD's!
But all it still says is that defenses still feel like their best shot is to drop 7. That's all it means.
And we have the answer for that, so I don't see what the problem is.
They're working on the WR room, they're not being complacent. You have to play the kids to develop them, and they're going to do that. It's fine. It's smart.
I don't have a problem with RBs scoring receiving TDs. Hell, I'd rather they score more rushing TDs, anyone that's read some of my posts in a GDT knows that. Every skill position should score some.
The WRs, though, should be the primary scorers, since they obviously are the most athletic, talented, and fastest position group on any team. And I find it concerning when they struggle to score, especially for long periods in a season.
And it wasn't about opposing defenses playing 2-high shells/3-down DLs all the time. I'm sorry but that's just not the case.
Teams began playing a lot more man vs. KC in the latter half of 2022. I don't know if it was most, but many teams didn't play that 2-high shell vs. KC in 2022. Brett Kollman made that observation, as did Chris Simms, among others. They were able to stifle the Chiefs receivers by playing more conventional press/man coverages.
And they did.
For the three-game stretch, from Week 11 to Week 13 (LAC/LAR/CIN), the Chiefs WR room scored exactly ZERO TDs.
The rest of the season went like this for our WRs:
@DEN: 1 TD
@HOU: 1
SEA: 1
DEN: 0
LVR: 0 (statistically the worst passing defense in the league over the last 16 years)
8 weeks, 3 TDs.
And no, it didn't get a lot better in the playoffs. 1 vs. JAX, 1 vs. CIN, 2 vs. PHI.
So while I agree that the plan usually is to pivot to you RBs/TEs when your WRs are struggling in a game here and there, it's probably not Andy's plan for the WRs to consistently struggle to score for more than half a season. Or, to post multiple streaks of games in a season where they can't find the EZ at all.
I mean, there's just no buttering that up to make that look good.
When you have the best offensive mind designing and calling the plays for the best QB to ever live, the WRs, if they were at least better than DRob/Pringle, should've scored more than 3 times in 2 months against some of the league's worst/most dinged up defenses.
And I haven't even mentioned the lack of yards or the 1st down stats from our WRs over that stretch. Again, not inspiring.
So yeah, I, and many others it seems, would like to have a little more juice in the WR room. You know, just in case Travis and McKinnon don't have another career year receiving/scoring. Or even just a WR that can reliably move the chains OTHER than Travis? You know, another guy that Pat can depend on for more than a play or two, or a game or two? Just saying, it would be nice . . . [Reply]
Originally Posted by Megatron96:
I don't have a problem with RBs scoring receiving TDs. Hell, I'd rather they score more rushing TDs, anyone that's read some of my posts in a GDT knows that. Every skill position should score some.
The WRs, though, should be the primary scorers, since they obviously are the most athletic, talented, and fastest position group on any team. And I find it concerning when they struggle to score, especially for long periods in a season.
And it wasn't about opposing defenses playing 2-high shells/3-down DLs all the time. I'm sorry but that's just not the case.
Teams began playing a lot more man vs. KC in the latter half of 2022. I don't know if it was most, but many teams didn't play that 2-high shell vs. KC in 2022. Brett Kollman made that observation, as did Chris Simms, among others. They were able to stifle the Chiefs receivers by playing more conventional press/man coverages.
And they did.
For the three-game stretch, from Week 11 to Week 13 (LAC/LAR/CIN), the Chiefs WR room scored exactly ZERO TDs.
The rest of the season went like this for our WRs:
@DEN: 1 TD
@HOU: 1
SEA: 1
DEN: 0
LVR: 0 (statistically the worst passing defense in the league over the last 16 years)
8 weeks, 3 TDs.
And no, it didn't get a lot better in the playoffs. 1 vs. JAX, 1 vs. CIN, 2 vs. PHI.
So while I agree that the plan usually is to pivot to you RBs/TEs when your WRs are struggling in a game here and there, it's probably not Andy's plan for the WRs to consistently struggle to score for more than half a season. Or, to post multiple streaks of games in a season where they can't find the EZ at all.
I mean, there's just no buttering that up to make that look good.
When you have the best offensive mind designing and calling the plays for the best QB to ever live, the WRs, if they were at least better than DRob/Pringle, should've scored more than 3 times in 2 months against some of the league's worst/most dinged up defenses.
And I haven't even mentioned the lack of yards or the 1st down stats from our WRs over that stretch. Again, not inspiring.
So yeah, I, and many others it seems, would like to have a little more juice in the WR room. You know, just in case Travis and McKinnon don't have another career year receiving/scoring. Or even just a WR that can reliably move the chains OTHER than Travis? You know, another guy that Pat can depend on for more than a play or two, or a game or two? Just saying, it would be nice . . .
They played more man because Juju with a bum knee was too slow to beat them and Hardman's never been much of a route runner. You'll notice both are gone.
And your argument that the WR's are faster...well, when you have two RB's that run sub 4.4, I don't think that's necessarily the case. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Chris Meck:
They played more man because Juju with a bum knee was too slow to beat them and Hardman's never been much of a route runner. You'll notice both are gone.
And your argument that the WR's are faster...well, when you have two RB's that run sub 4.4, I don't think that's necessarily the case.
Well, we could argue about why teams began playing more man and more traditional defenses, but my point still stands. It worked.
Sorry, I meant that WRs as a position group are the fastest, most athletic players on the field. Historically/generally speaking, obviously. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Megatron96:
Well, we could argue about why teams began playing more man and more traditional defenses, but my point still stands. It worked.
Sorry, I meant that WRs as a position group are the fastest, most athletic players on the field. Historically/generally speaking, obviously.
Except it didn't work, we still were the number one offense in football, and the number one scoring offense. So no, it didn't work. And Mckinnon scored so much because in man, the defense has their backs to the line of scrimmage.
So again, it's not a problem, it's a feature. It's a cheat code.
Now, of course we'd like better WR play; certainly some speed, some better route running, more complete skillsets or at least complimentary skillsets. So we've invested in a number one, and two twos along with two veteran insurance policies.
Chiefs aren't worried. Veach isn't worried. Andy's not worried. Doesn't seem like Pat's worried. You're worried.
Originally Posted by Chris Meck:
Except it didn't work, we still were the number one offense in football, and the number one scoring offense. So no, it didn't work. And Mckinnon scored so much because in man, the defense has their backs to the line of scrimmage.
So again, it's not a problem, it's a feature. It's a cheat code.
Now, of course we'd like better WR play; certainly some speed, some better route running, more complete skillsets or at least complimentary skillsets. So we've invested in a number one, and two twos along with two veteran insurance policies.
Chiefs aren't worried. Veach isn't worried. Andy's not worried. Doesn't seem like Pat's worried. You're worried.
It's going to be fine.
Okay, well in my opinion, it's a 'cheat code' when it happens every once in a while, say every three-four-five games, when it's necessary.
To me, It's a bit of a red flag when it's 5 out of the last 8 games, with a 3-game and 2-game streak, separated by less than a month. Particularly when it happens in the latter half of the season, when the offense is supposed to be in sync, vs. some of the worst defenses in the league. To me, that tells me that something is off. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Megatron96:
Okay, well in my opinion, it's a 'cheat code' when it happens every once in a while, say every three-four-five games, when it's necessary.
To me, It's a bit of a red flag when it's 5 out of the last 8 games, with a 3-game and 2-game streak, separated by less than a month. Particularly when it happens in the latter half of the season, when the offense is supposed to be in sync, vs. some of the worst defenses in the league. To me, that tells me that something is off.
Something was off. Juju's knee looked like a grapefruit. Hardman missed a chunk of time.
Good lord, man, you have very significant selective memory. [Reply]
Guessing the Cards are actively pursuing conversations on DeHop at the owners' meeting. Wouldn't be surprised to see something happen this week. [Reply]
Originally Posted by T-post Tom:
Guessing the Cards are actively pursuing conversations on DeHop at the owners' meeting. Wouldn't be surprised to see something happen this week.
Originally Posted by Megatron96:
I don't have a problem with RBs scoring receiving TDs. Hell, I'd rather they score more rushing TDs, anyone that's read some of my posts in a GDT knows that. Every skill position should score some.
The WRs, though, should be the primary scorers, since they obviously are the most athletic, talented, and fastest position group on any team. And I find it concerning when they struggle to score, especially for long periods in a season.
And it wasn't about opposing defenses playing 2-high shells/3-down DLs all the time. I'm sorry but that's just not the case.
Teams began playing a lot more man vs. KC in the latter half of 2022. I don't know if it was most, but many teams didn't play that 2-high shell vs. KC in 2022. Brett Kollman made that observation, as did Chris Simms, among others. They were able to stifle the Chiefs receivers by playing more conventional press/man coverages.
And they did.
For the three-game stretch, from Week 11 to Week 13 (LAC/LAR/CIN), the Chiefs WR room scored exactly ZERO TDs.
The rest of the season went like this for our WRs:
@DEN: 1 TD
@HOU: 1
SEA: 1
DEN: 0
LVR: 0 (statistically the worst passing defense in the league over the last 16 years)
8 weeks, 3 TDs.
And no, it didn't get a lot better in the playoffs. 1 vs. JAX, 1 vs. CIN, 2 vs. PHI.
So while I agree that the plan usually is to pivot to you RBs/TEs when your WRs are struggling in a game here and there, it's probably not Andy's plan for the WRs to consistently struggle to score for more than half a season. Or, to post multiple streaks of games in a season where they can't find the EZ at all.
I mean, there's just no buttering that up to make that look good.
When you have the best offensive mind designing and calling the plays for the best QB to ever live, the WRs, if they were at least better than DRob/Pringle, should've scored more than 3 times in 2 months against some of the league's worst/most dinged up defenses.
And I haven't even mentioned the lack of yards or the 1st down stats from our WRs over that stretch. Again, not inspiring.
So yeah, I, and many others it seems, would like to have a little more juice in the WR room. You know, just in case Travis and McKinnon don't have another career year receiving/scoring. Or even just a WR that can reliably move the chains OTHER than Travis? You know, another guy that Pat can depend on for more than a play or two, or a game or two? Just saying, it would be nice . . .
