On Wednesday, it was announced that the Chiefs had acquired DeAndre Hopkins from the Titans for a fifth-round pick.

Sources: #Titans WR DeAndre Hopkins is being traded to the #Chiefs in exchange for a 5th rounder that can get to a fourth rounder. Deal is being finalized.

A key veteran who could be the final piece, Hopkins name has been hot in the trade market. Now, he lands with the champs. pic.twitter.com/GRvRbUwux6

— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) October 23, 2024

Heading into the season, Kansas City looked like they would be getting back to their explosive ways. The team signed Hollywood Brown in free agency and added speedster Xavier Worthy in the first round of the draft to stretch defenses. The Chiefs also had Travis Kelce and Rashee Rice in the fold to terrorize defenses in the short-to-intermediate areas of the field.

Brown never made it to the regular season, and Rice suffered a season-ending knee injury in Week 4 after looking like one of the best WRs in the league to that point.

Juju Smith-Schuster slotted into Rice’s role in Week 5 and had a 20-point PPR performance heading into the Chiefs’ bye week. He returned with high hopes after the bye, only to deliver zero points for fantasy managers after aggravating a hamstring injury that is likely to keep him out at least a few weeks.

It was rumored that we could have gotten an even bigger splash on Wednesday, but the Chiefs were not willing to meet the Rams’ trade demands for Cooper Kupp.

The deal didn’t happen because KC didn’t want to give up a high draft pick and needed trade partner willing to eat a “large chunk” of the player’s salary, per @DMRussini

Chiefs later traded a 5th-round pick for DeAndre Hopkins pic.twitter.com/gu47vh6Uoi

— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) October 23, 2024

Kupp would have been a direct replacement for Rice had he joined the Chiefs, and possibly a superior one depending on his health. Still, Hopkins is a solid consolation prize, especially for the price. But should we expect Hopkins to fill the role that has been vacated by Rice, or will he be used in a different way in Kansas City’s offense?

Obviously, this is not an apples-to-apples comparison due to the eight-year age gap between the two, but Rice and Hopkins posted very similar testing results when they attended the combine. Hopkins posted better size-adjusted metrics, while Rice was the more explosive of the two. Still, anyone who has seen highlights of Hopkins leaping over three defenders on contested catches may debate if his combine testing was truly representative of the athlete he has been in the NFL.

If it is any consolation, Smith-Schuster was one of Hopkins’ athletic comps in the Workout Explorer, and he was able to produce in his brief audition as Rice’s fill-in. While Smith-Schuster is still Hopkins’ junior by five years, it could easily be argued that Hopkins could be the better athlete of the two at this stage of their careers.

While Hopkins and Rice share similar body types, where the two differ dramatically is how they have been used over their careers. In Rice’s first two seasons, he has had air yards per target (AY/T) marks of 4.8 in 2023 and 5.8 in 2024. Hopkins’ career-low of 8.9 AY/T in 2020 was only season of his 12-year career when he averaged less than 10.0 AY/T. Even as recent as last year, Hopkins tied his career-high by averaging 14.1 AY/T on a total of 138 targets.

Despite Rice’s low AY/T, one of the things that made him so effective this season was a 33% evasion percentage (EVAS%) and an average of 7.8 yards after the catch per reception (YAC/R) that ranked fifth among WRs.

Hopkins has never been a big YAC/R player, with his career-high of 4.9 YAC/R coming all the way back in 2014. We must take into account that getting targeted deeper down the field might be somewhat to blame, but we have a long enough history that says Hopkins will not be able to reproduce the after-the-catch brilliance that was such a big part of Rice’s game.

After taking all the factors into account, it does not look like Hopkins will be a good drop-in replacement for Rice. But that does not mean he will not be a significant contributor in the Chiefs’ offense. What we will likely see is Hopkins deployed in the intermediate-to-deep areas of the field, while Kelce operates closer to the line of scrimmage. When Smith-Schuster is able to return, he will probably operate in a considerably scaled-down version of the role he had in Week 5. The big X-factor in the offense continues to be Worthy, who could unlock everything if the Chiefs can get him more involved at all levels of the field.

Overall, the trade for Hopkins may not be the home run swing that returns Kansas City’s offense to the elite levels of the past, but it should be a Band-Aid that helps the team continue on their winning ways while the defense does most of the heavy lifting.