This offseason we have seen several excellent wide receivers get traded because of teams being in a salary-cap crunch. The Kansas City Chiefs traded Tyreek Hill to the Miami Dolphins and he signed the largest contract per year for a wide receiver. Amari Cooper was traded to the Cleveland Cavaliers as a cap casualty of the Dallas Cowboys.
The Green Bay Packers would have loved to keep Davante Adams, but it wasn’t in the cards. He was traded to the Las Vegas Raiders. Robert Woods was also dealt from the Los Angeles Rams to the Tennessee Titans.
Those are some big names on the move, but we may not have seen the last of All-Pro caliber receivers being on the move. San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Deebo Samuel has asked the team for a trade as well, which will get the market going once again.
With the 2022 NFL Draft just a week away, the 49ers don’t have much time to make a deal if they want to receive compensation they can benefit from as soon as possible. Samuel is entering the last season of his rookie deal and any trade that is completed will likely come contingent on an extension being worked out.
Virtually every team in the NFL would love to add a player of Samuel’s caliber to their roster. He turned into a hybrid weapon last season, dominating defenses as a pass catcher and running back. One team that could certainly use that help is the Chiefs.
Replacing Hill is virtually impossible, as there isn’t anyone in the NFL that can impact a game in the fashion that he does. But, acquiring Samuel would certainly be a good place to start for replacement.
He would join JuJu Smith-Schuster and Marquez Valdes-Scantling, two players who signed in Kansas City this offseason, and holdover Mecole Hardman to create one of the deeper wide receiver groups in the NFL. When you throw in tight end Travis Kelce, Patrick Mahomes should be just fine without Hill.
Samuel would provide an already high-power offense with another dynamic weapon to get even more creative offensively. Not only would that be a talented group of pass-catchers, but they are physical and get after it in the run game as well.
But, acquiring Samuel would put the Chiefs in the same spot that they were in with Hill. Was there a reason that they didn’t want to pay Hill that doesn’t exist with someone such as Samuel? That would be the only true hold-up from Kansas City’s perspective, as they possess the draft capital to get the job done.
