Value, pricing, and asset division: How can the Chiefs trade for a top receiver in a way that makes sense?
There are multiple big names supposedly on the market. Can Kansas City possibly justify trading for one given their recent move away from Tyreek Hill? Maybe, but it would be tough.
We’re going to briefly pause the “know your draft crush” series, where we’ve been looking at a whole slew of wide receivers (most recently George Pickens) to ask a simple question… what if they didn’t?
As in, what if they didn’t take a wide receiver in the first round, which is what pretty much everyone on the planet who covers the NFL believes will happen? What if, instead, they decided to get crazy and take advantage of one of the most bizarre offseasons for high-level wide receivers in recent memory?
Today, yet another exceptional player made public his desire to play for a new team in 2022.
Deebo, who has since made a cryptic statement that didn’t really walk back the idea that he wants to be traded, can get in line, it seems. Over the course of the last several weeks, he’s one of only a handful of high-level wide receivers who have either very directly or in a more subtle way requested to be moved from their current team or has been rumored to be available (AJ Brown, Terry McLaurin, and DK Metcalf being the others).
This shouldn’t necessarily be a surprise, given the recent blockbuster trades of Devante Adams and Tyreek Hill (and the subsequent contracts that came with them). However, it’s a rarity that so many high-level players at a valuable position seem to be trying to either get a new contract (that seems to be the issue with several of these cases) or just get out of town entirely. And make no mistake, these are all high-level players.
This brings us to the Chiefs, they of the “just traded away one of the best wide receivers in the game” fame (notoriety?). It makes sense that the Chiefs are coming up in connection with the apparently available receivers who are unhappy where they’re at. After all, they have a WR1-sized hole in the roster and plenty of draft picks to play with in the trade game.
But does it make sense for Kansas City, who just traded away one of the very best receivers in the league, to turn around and then trade for another (in all likelihood lesser, because pretty much everyone is a lesser receiver than Hill) expensive player? There’s a lot of conversation about it currently, and I think it makes sense to delve into why it’s problematic and what circumstances would make it more palatable if that’s exactly what the Chiefs did.