He's always been among the best route-runners in the game. And his sight adjustments as well. He's 90% Jerry Rice level in every aspect of WR skillsets, and then on top of that, he's the best contested ball catcher we've ever seen.

It's why I always wanted him here instead of just another speed guy.

I'm not saying this is the next Tom Brady-Randy Moss combo, but it sure has some similar vibes.

>HOF level WR is in purgatory playing for a failing franchise
>Joins up with the GOAT and a well run organization
>Is suddenly rejuvenated and excited to be playing "meaningful football" and has a real chance of getting a ring before retiring.

Of course the Chiefs want a complete WR, but shifting to a different mold considering what Patrick is accustomed would be fascinating.

You had plenty of company in being wrong about DHop.

The entire time I was banging the drum for bringing him in prior to last season I kept saying that he's unlike any WR Mahomes has ever had. The fact that he hauled in that desperation Hail Mary Mahomes hit him with while he was about to be sacked bodes very well for his/our future. Mahomes has never had a guy who could go up and get a 50/50 ball like DHop can. Expect his opportunities to continue to increase, especially if he keeps bailing us out like he did on that play.

The second he caught that pass, I felt like Mahomes was going to look his way every time he's in trouble now. Talk about gaining trust in a MOMENT.

He was phenomenal. If he stays healthy he's an unbelievable get.

That first touchdown pass and catch was a freakish display. That being said, I was even more impressed by the second one where he positioned his body such that the defender has ZERO chance of making a play as long as Pat put the ball where he wanted. It was just such a professionally executed route.

Love me some D-Hop, finally Mahomes has one of those receivers.

Yup. Just one step out to get the defender thinking its outside fade, then right to the middle. Safety is too far off him thinking about Kelce, and it's already too late.

Great play all around.

That was an amazing throw and catch. If we weren't already the two-time defending champion and undefeated in 2024, I would say that it put the league on notice.

As things stand, it probably made the rest of the league want to quit football.

I’m glad we traded for a big deal and not just MVS to rely on

he is a HOFer for sure, hopeful he has 2-3 strong years left and he can bring a lot of stability to a very unstable Chiefs WR room

We need to keep doing this a few more games to get mahomes in rhythm. I still think he’s exorcising some demons especially in terms of being aggressive. But at some point we may need to dial things back for the main stretch. Our usage of kelce and dhop and Kareem are a little concerning. I’d still like to see some guys take away some of the workload. I’m hoping juju can help although I’m wondering how he’ll play off of dhop, since we couldn’t really get him to play off of rashee.

medusa

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-media-max-width="560"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Spin cycle <a href="https://twitter.com/DeAndreHopkins?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@DeAndreHopkins</a> <a href="https://t.co/xwn4YeUDGo">pic.twitter.com/xwn4YeUDGo</a></p>&mdash; 📽️ Red Tribe Cinema (@ClayWendler) <a href="https://twitter.com/ClayWendler/status/1854294358033338371?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 6, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

I laughed out loud when I saw the replay; DHop actually waited for Hayes to breakdown and launch himself before spinning away. Playing with his food.

I really like DHOP's cool, calm and collective demeanor

Hate to say it because I love R. Rice. Hated seeing him get hurt. But you could argue Hopkins might be an upgrade and actually more valuable especially 4-6 weeks from now when he has a grasp of the entire offense.

Again...

They're just different. Hopkins is obviously more experienced and polished. Rice is young/inexperienced, but probably significantly faster/quicker, and more physical after the catch. I try not to think about it much, but my fervent hope is that somehow Veach gets Hopkins to return next season, and Rice can then learn how to be a more complete WR. The dividends that'll pay after DHop retires/leaves the team will be . . . something to see.

DHop’s biggest advantage is that he catches everything. I believe that there was a season when he was with Houston where he didn’t drop a pass. That’s insane when you think about it. That pass he caught in triple coverage was unbelievable. That’s one trait he does possess over Rashee, although I still think Rice is a stud WR.

He has facehuggers for hands

https://www.xenomorphine.com/fileadm...4ee56a60be.jpg

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">By the way, this is DeAndre Hopkins&#39;s hand. The other hand is mine. I am not a tiny human. <a href="https://t.co/ekpfoKXE15">pic.twitter.com/ekpfoKXE15</a></p>&mdash; Robert Mays (@robertmays) <a href="https://twitter.com/robertmays/status/763782304263274496?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 11, 2016</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Rice was probably going to have one of those 100+ catches and 1400+ yard and 10+ TD seasons. A legendary, going to get paid afterwards, type of season.

I hope he can come back next season as the same player, that injury is really rough. And if we can give DHOP a 2 year deal or something it would be amazing.

Rice was going to have an All Pro season.

Yes he was. Such a tragedy

As weird as it may be to say, if dhop stays healthy then I don’t miss rice as much. Because I don’t think we get dhop if rice is healthy. And it’s not because rice is that much of a worse player. I just think dhop is the wr mahomes needed to get him out of his funk.

If we had rashee with Hollywood… look out. But I think mahomes had a tendency to tunnel vision to rashee and made mahomes too comfortable with those low ADOTs where rashee makes all the moves after the catch. I also think jujus role overlaps a bit with rashee. Next year on the other hand when either worthy matures (hopefully) and ideally we have another downfield target We can really get the most out of a rashee offense

Bet his hog is HUGE.

Almost as huge as the average ChiefsPlanet member's hog (12 inches).

tite

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GbmjrV4X...name=4096x4096

The Chiefs are just trolling everyone. Wait until Hopkins is playing 50+ snaps a game LMAO

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GdOiy5JW...ng&name=medium

Rice isn't coming back. Stop that.

But I bet the Chiefs have a separate set of postseason plays they've been practicing all year no one has ever seen.

Probably mostly third and long, redzone stuff.

OMG, we really are trying to preserve that higher draft pick, aren’t we? Lmfaooooooo

I think it is a combination of that and not wanting to tip their hand on too much with Hopkins, and wanting to keep him healthy.

The Chiefs cannot afford to lose Hopkins.

Ran by this today. This makes a lot of sense and I think is the answer we are looking for when both Hopkins and Worthy aren’t on the field for some 3rd downs.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">DeAndre Hopkins has been here for a month. Andy Reid has a 400-page playbook. He hasn&#39;t repped and worked his way into every single play and position yet.<br><br>My presumption would be the Chiefs called a play that he hasn&#39;t repped. They are playing the long game with Hopkins. I bet… <a href="https://t.co/H3ujIrlqLD">https://t.co/H3ujIrlqLD</a></p>&mdash; Matt Derrick (@mattderrick) <a href="https://twitter.com/mattderrick/status/1860755073938129359?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 24, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

I don't see the issue with limiting his snaps. He's an old pro, he knows his body, the team knows where he is with the playbook, he's teaching the young guys the day to day, and we don't need to win every game by 20.

Just have him and his body ready to roll fresh plays when the playoffs come. Let him lay it all on the line when it counts. If he blows the knee out at that point no one will care because everyone knows it was his shot at a ring and the team's shot at putting themselves on a list of one.

Cynically, the pick becomes more pricy for us to give away if he has 60% of our snaps per game (according to Twitter, anyway).

Yep. We want that 5th round pick (edit 4th roundpick). We are pacing ourselves, too. We are just trying shit. We know what works. We have a plethora of plays that Reid and Patrick know work like a charm. We also intentionally showed nothing to the Bills because we know we will play them in the playoffs. Reid doesn't like to have much on tape.

Yeah, I think it's much more likely they're pacing him because of the playbook and his injury history. I don't see them sandbagging for a 4th rounder.

I don't think he's injured at all anymore. I read up on that grade of tear and it should have been completely healed by the time we acquired him. Maybe it's something else though because he did sit out the 2nd half of the game before we acquired him...but I think that's more likely that they just didnt want him hurt before traded.

Yeah I'm not saying he's injured so much as he was hurting earlier in the season and they might hold him back a bit to make sure he stays healthy. I just don't buy that they're purposefully holding him back for the difference between a 4th and a 5th.

Then limit the goddamned playbook for a while. My ****ing God, they just did that at the end of the regular season last year after going on a 2-4 stretch and the starting offense had some of their best performances of the season back to back to back against the Bengals, Dolphins, and Bills.

Can't disagree there.

Sick of watching Justin Watson do nothing and play pretty much all game.

DHop for a late 5th is a genuine steal.

Justin Watson threw TWO blocks on the play that won the game.

Please shut up, traitor.

I don't give a shit. Maybe he should get open so his QB can throw him the ball.

I think we all know dhop will see a huge jump in route participation and target share once we hit the main stretch. And we have the luxury to do that. I give close to zero ****s if we’re taking our time until then.

Like this? Just admit Justin Watson is a net positive and go away, doomer.

https://i.imgur.com/oXrkTF9.gif

Clayster you be nice

We may not always understand it, but there is a reason Reid wants him out there... and the double block he threw to spring Mahomes pivotal run is a perfect example of it

No. Justin Watson is one of Mahomes' favorites. Doomers will not disparage dynasty-era heroes.

Justin Watson is original gymrat

The best thing about Watson is that Tom Brady had no use for him.

Mahomes makes magic with Brady's garbage.

Yeah this seems weird unless they think they can work something out next season

Why slow play a half season rental so he can learn a 400 page playbook just to move on in the offseason?

Because if his snap count is lower the Titans get a lower pick from us..

If true, someone needs to march into Veach's office and tell him to stay the hell out of on-the-field decisions. Screw the pick, ffs. Put the best play-makers on the field in the most critical situations, period.

There's just no way they're sandbagging him for the difference between a 4th and a 5th. There's no way they are that dumb.

I think it's dumb but they look like they're sandbagging in general. The Carolina game plan was extremely vanilla on both sides.

Well that at least seems plausible. Holding him back for playbook or injury/health reasons are at least plausible. Holding him back for the difference between a late 4th and a late 5th would just be ridiculous beyond reason.

You're dumb. You're witnessing greatness and don't appreciate it.

I think it's mostly just that he's only been with the team for 4 weeks, and the playbook/playcalling sheet is massive. I remember a couple seasons ago reading/hearing that the average OC has about 150 plays on their sheet for a game, but Andy has well over 200. Something around 240, iirc.

And a lot of Andy's plays are situational; 3rd down and long plays, 3rd down and shorts, RZ plays, EZ plays, end-of-the-1st-half plays, end-of-game plays, etc. Just guessing, but I'd believe that DHop just hasn't absorbed all those situational packages yet.

This.

Also Justin Watson basically make both the blocks that allowed Pat to get that long first down run that sealed the game. He doesn't need to lose snaps

Jesus, the Streisand level of hysteria around here would be comical if it wasn’t so tragically ridiculous.

For his production, JWat is on the field far too much. And it's not like he's a reliable pass-catcher. And at the end of the day, he's been in on 484 (63%) snaps this season and yet only caught 18 passes for a measly 218 yds this season, no TDs. And I get it, he's in on a ton of run-blocking plays, and fine, I'd much rather have him run-blocking than DHop, that's a given. But that doesn't explain why he's been in there on obvious passing 3rd downs while Hopkins stands on the sidelines.

Its probably all of those reasons bundled up into one.

Bundlerooski. Bundlearoooski.

Yep. And if you people think Justin Watson will be our #1 WR by snaps when the playoffs start...well I don't know that is just hilarious.

Jwat gets a lot of love on here but he’s really just a system WR. I’d like to believe he gets the route participation because they’re just easing dhop in. But we’ll be better off when he’s on the field way less. He’s fine as a back of the chart stash but hes getting way too many reps for what he is

Dhop and Justin should be flipped on snaps here

I mean yeah but after his first game here he had two straight games of 60-70% snaps. If it's a playbook thing or doesn't make sense for his snaps to go down the longer he's here. I think they're trying to keep him fresh for the playoff run or he has some minor injury they're trying not to make worse.

THat was my thought initially right after we signed Hopkins. I figured it would take at least 6 weeks for DHop to absorb enough of the playbook and get comfortable enough with all the alert/can stuff to be out there for most of the subpackages. But I also thought we'd see a gradual decline in JWat's snaps as Hopkins became more acclimated, but we haven't really seen that yet.

It's a little puzzling/frustrating to me. But, I guess we'll just have to see if it continues over the next 4 weeks or so.

He's the third oldest WR in the league. He's 32. Only Adam Thielen and Keenan Allen are older.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out why he's not getting snaps now. They're saving him for the playoffs.

They need to do the same with Kelce.

It looks like Hopkins is on a limited snap count to save him for the playoffs.

I mean, I obviously have no idea what they're thinking. I do know that Hopkins never looks gassed the way Mike Evans has a lot of the time when I've watched him this season. And he's clearly wanted to be on the field on 3rd downs, but they always shake their heads at him.


I guess we'll see what they have planned eventually.

I was surprised that Kelce played 66 of 74 snaps yesterday.

You think it might have anything to do with the conditional draft pick we used in the trade?

Same. Especially with a short week this week. We can thank the defense for forcing Reid's hand yesterday.

Honestly, no. Because that would be just about the dumbest ****ing reason imaginable for keeping DHop off the field. If that were the reason, I’d say that was a fireable offense.

Would it tho? The risk of injury goes up along with the possibility of the higher draft pick the more he plays.

Yes. Because the difference between a late 4th and 5th round pick isn't insanely material and it only becomes a 4th if he plays 60% of snaps AND we make the Super Bowl.

We very possibly have 2 more losses already if Hopkins didn't exist on the team. Anyone here would do a 4th/5th pick swaps in a heartbeat for a Super Bowl appearance.

He doesn't have an injury problem. Some people conflated that idea when he tore his MCL back in '21, then missed the first 6 games of '22, due to a suspension, not the injury. Other than that, he's missed a game here and there, but the reality is that he's played 92% of all possible games throughout his career. I mean, he played every single game for TEN while he was there, all 23 games, I think?

And a Grade 3 MCL 'tear' isn't even a tear, it's more like he overstretched it.


I think he's physically fine, and holding him back over a potential draft pick is worse than dumb. He needs to be on the field, getting a feel for those subpackages as soon as possible, because we're going to need him out there come the playoffs. I just watched the A-22 of the game, and he was a really big part of the reason we even won that game, and I'm not just talking about the TD catch.

All that said, I don't believe that Andy would be dumb enough to limit DHop's snaps because of a potential 4th rdr; he's just not that kind of stupid. I think it has to do with the fact that he's only been on the team for a month.

And JuJu just got back, and he needs to get some reps to get back up to speed, obviously, because he looks like he's not quite there yet.

And I noticed that they have Mecole doing some different things, like playing RB, and I'll bet that becomes something in the playoffs.

And of course, Worthy needs his reps as well, simply because he's a rook.


But I still say there's simply no reason for our WR5 to eat up 65% of the snaps, when DHop could easily take on an extra half-dozen or 10 snaps, and the offense would definitely be a lot better for it.

Yeah. Since we've been losing without playing him more, someone should lose their job.

Great point.

If his snap count has anything to do with the draft pick, it's that they always planned to put him on a pitch count and negotiated the trade accordingly.