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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D Hop would be a nice toy to have but I'm more interested in the development of Skyy Moore and Rashee Rice and don't want reps taken away from them. Also I want to see Chris Jones get a nice payday. [Reply]
Offer Hopkins a 1 year 10m deal that can get to 17 with incentives for playing time and production and let’s go get another ring. That amount can be managed through a couple simple restructures or expedite a new Jones deal to facilitate a Hopkins signing while also adding another DT to the mix.
The signing will pay dividends as the other young WRs will all learn a lot from a HOF WR out there.
It will help Kelce get even more open as the larger defenders with juice will be moving to cover Hop.
It will give Mahomes a dependable option in all situations. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Rasputin:
D Hop would be a nice toy to have but I'm more interested in the development of Skyy Moore and Rashee Rice and don't want reps taken away from them. Also I want to see Chris Jones get a nice payday.
IMO signing Hopkins has no impact on the development of guys like Skyy or Rice. If anything, it provides a HOF type player in the room that the young guys can emulate. There are more than enough snaps/reps to go around. [Reply]
Adam Schefter believes the Chiefs are the leader for DeAndre Hopkins, who may take his time because his market in the NFL might be as high as what he (and the public) believes it should be. Notes that Bills, Patriots, and Browns also in the mix. https://t.co/CWMnIHYeM6
Originally Posted by TEX:
Schefter is a TOOL. Ask him if Rodgers is going to Denver.
out of all the years he's been "Adam Shefter" NFL guy, you pick just 1 thing he was wrong on that may or may not have changed in the 11th hour? lol ok. [Reply]
Originally Posted by chiefzilla1501:
It’s not scaredy cat stuff. Ross and Toney for now are Sammy Watkins who can’t be relied upon for a full season until we see otherwise.
Skyy has potential but in many scenarios may have to make a leap to WR1 if Toney can’t go.
Rice, given Reid’s history, will need time to develop.
Mvs is not a wr you can rely on from week to week.
I get the idea of developing the room. But that’s a lot of question marks you can heal up with a single bandaid. I think finding a WR1 is really hard especially when you’re relying on the pick 50s to find your guys. I think we’re on our way to a deep wr room and a lot of real good potential WR2s with an outside shot at a WR1. And no I don’t think we should even remotely settle for giving the best qb in sports anything short of a bonafide, legit WR1. I’m not worried about the potential of our wr room or playing them. I am bothered however by the contentness that mahomes should have to settle for anything less simply because he’s great.
But again, what is a WR1? I'm not familiar with that position.
If you mean THE stud WR that's going to catch 100 balls for 1000 yards, then no, we really don't need that. We have a guy that's going to catch 100 balls for 1000.What we NEED is a group that can accumulate another 2500-3000 or so, and your backs are going to add another 500 or more in receptions, and you're going to be top 5 at worst and probably more like top 3 with as good of a chance at #1 as anyone.
Skyy barely played. A starter role will absolutely be exponentially different statistically, and that's not a stretch. Toney's only question is health. Will either go for 1000? Maybe, maybe not. Does either need to? One of them probably needs to get close.
There's no reason at all not to expect that. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Chris Meck:
But again, what is a WR1? I'm not familiar with that position.
If you mean THE stud WR that's going to catch 100 balls for 1000 yards, then no, we really don't need that. We have a guy that's going to catch 100 balls for 1000.What we NEED is a group that can accumulate another 2500-3000 or so, and your backs are going to add another 500 or more in receptions, and you're going to be top 5 at worst and probably more like top 3 with as good of a chance at #1 as anyone.
Skyy barely played. A starter role will absolutely be exponentially different statistically, and that's not a stretch. Toney's only question is health. Will either go for 1000? Maybe, maybe not. Does either need to? One of them probably needs to get close.
There's no reason at all not to expect that.
A WR1 doesn’t have to be that. Brady has had many WR1s in his career and they don’t always require a large target share and he’s always run a well distributed offense. A WR1 can line up legit against top DBs and be competent. So you don’t have to force guys like skyy (unless he proves otherwise) on these guys and you give him better chances to win against lesser DBs which helps you spread the ball around. The issue wasn’t that we had tyreek, it’s that our other options were so awful that teams were willing to double kelce and tyreek and pay zero attention to everyone else, and even with that little attention they couldn’t do anything. We have really to good depth now to surround a WR1 but until we find one, we ask each of them to punch above their weight.
So… why do we need that? Because we’ve seen more and more teams batter the shit out of kelce and in some cases succeeding (hello, Tennessee and buffalo). He deserves a foil. Because we need a bailout so mahomes doesn’t have to do magic tricks in the pocket to get guys open. That will only help him get rid of the ball faster. And at some point, teams are going to adjust and force us to open the offense up and we’ve seen several games where Mvs/mahomes just couldn’t get that done. They were totally out of sync. We’ve got a lot of catch and run options but we have to have the versatility to have guys who can also do damage before the catch is even made. By getting open, running great routes, and making excellent adjustments once the ball is in the air.
When you watch the Super Bowl, contrast AJ browns outstanding adjustment to the TD grab early to MVS spinning in completely the wrong direction. Or juju not flattening his final route or closing on the ball which would have made the holding call blatantly obvious. It shouldn’t be too much to ask for mahomes to have WRs who can make adjustments to the ball. These are the little glitches mahomes covers up for all the time. And there will come a day soon when he doesn’t have to and that’s where we we go from elite to downright unstoppable. [Reply]
Originally Posted by chiefzilla1501:
A WR1 doesn’t have to be that. Brady has had many WR1s in his career and they don’t always require a large target share and he’s always run a well distributed offense. A WR1 can line up legit against top DBs and be competent. So you don’t have to force guys like skyy (unless he proves otherwise) on these guys and you give him better chances to win against lesser DBs which helps you spread the ball around. The issue wasn’t that we had tyreek, it’s that our other options were so awful that teams were willing to double kelce and tyreek and pay zero attention to everyone else, and even with that little attention they couldn’t do anything. We have really to good depth now to surround a WR1 but until we find one, we ask each of them to punch above their weight.
So… why do we need that? Because we’ve seen more and more teams batter the shit out of kelce and in some cases succeeding (hello, Tennessee and buffalo). He deserves a foil. Because we need a bailout so mahomes doesn’t have to do magic tricks in the pocket to get guys open. That will only help him get rid of the ball faster. And at some point, teams are going to adjust and force us to open the offense up and we’ve seen several games where Mvs/mahomes just couldn’t get that done. They were totally out of sync. We’ve got a lot of catch and run options but we have to have the versatility to have guys who can also do damage before the catch is even made. By getting open, running great routes, and making excellent adjustments once the ball is in the air.
When you watch the Super Bowl, contrast AJ browns outstanding adjustment to the TD grab early to MVS spinning in completely the wrong direction. Or juju not flattening his final route or closing on the ball which would have made the holding call blatantly obvious. It shouldn’t be too much to ask for mahomes to have WRs who can make adjustments to the ball. These are the little glitches mahomes covers up for all the time. And there will come a day soon when he doesn’t have to and that’s where we we go from elite to downright unstoppable.
Ok, by your definition, we don't need to spend $15m per for Dhop then. Because I feel, and so does Veach, Andy, and Mahomes, that we have what we need in the building and the kids just need to play. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Chris Meck:
But again, what is a WR1? I'm not familiar with that position.
If you mean THE stud WR that's going to catch 100 balls for 1000 yards, then no, we really don't need that. We have a guy that's going to catch 100 balls for 1000.What we NEED is a group that can accumulate another 2500-3000 or so, and your backs are going to add another 500 or more in receptions, and you're going to be top 5 at worst and probably more like top 3 with as good of a chance at #1 as anyone.
Skyy barely played. A starter role will absolutely be exponentially different statistically, and that's not a stretch. Toney's only question is health. Will either go for 1000? Maybe, maybe not. Does either need to? One of them probably needs to get close.
There's no reason at all not to expect that.
FYI: the entire WR room barely surpassed 2,600 yards. The first four, the WR1/2/3/4, just peeked over 2,200. Well behind the top-10 offenses in 2022.
The average number of TDs scored by the top-10 receiving corps in the NFL was over 22. The Chiefs entire WR room scored just 13.
And you don't really expect Toney to play in 17 games this season, do you? I mean, the kind of surety to bet your house on it? Of course not.
If Toney plays in 12 games in 2023 that would be a pretty significant leap as far as his career availability is concerned, but still well short of what we need from him to be the primary WR in KC.
Skyy tripling his yardage production in just his second year may not be realistic. i think he may not ever become a true WR2, that he may be really a solid slot WR, and nothing more. Which isn't bad; if he becomes 70-75% of Edelman/Welker, great. That would be well worth the pick.
Oh, and Skyy did play. He was on the field for virtually every rushing snap, as the best run-blocking WR on the team. And he is pretty good at it.
And he was out there in plenty of passing snaps. Though, as we've discussed, he was usually the 3rd option at best, unless the play was schemed for him. But he had inconsistencies in his ability to get a good release vs. press, and in his route-running mid-stem/at the break. he's going to be a work-in-progress this season. We might see the finished product next season. Bottom line, 750 yards seems a little optimistic for Skyy in 2023. 600 (+/-50yds) would be a more realistic goal. [Reply]
