On Monday night, DeAndre Hopkins gave the Kansas City Chiefs exactly what they’d hoped for when they traded for the former Tennessee Titans Pro Bowler on Oct. 23. Hopkins caught eight passes for 86 yards and two touchdowns, helping the Chiefs win in overtime over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to maintain their undefeated record.
Three of the four teams with the best Super Bowl odds at the midway point of the season traded for a wide receiver within the past several weeks. In addition to the Chiefs, the Buffalo Bills acquired Amari Cooper and the Baltimore Ravens added Diontae Johnson.
There was also the New York Jets’ deal for Davante Adams in October, and two more acquisitions on the day of the trade deadline: Jonathan Mingo to the Dallas Cowboys and Mike Williams to the Pittsburgh Steelers. The six wide receiver trades during the 2024 season were the most of any year this century, according to Spotrac.
Wide receivers are the players most frequently traded in-season. Over the past decade, 31 receivers have been dealt after the opening kickoff of Week 1, far more than defensive ends (22), cornerbacks (19) and linebackers (19), and nearly as many as all other offensive players combined (38).
Pass catchers are acquired in an even higher share of the most consequential deals. Ten of the 29 in-season trades since 2015 in which a first, second or third-round pick was exchanged were for wide receivers.
Two of this year’s trades fit that criteria, as Cooper and Adams both cost their new teams at least a third-rounder. Wide receiver trades during the season are so common that this wasn’t even Cooper’s first—he was also dealt to the Dallas Cowboys for a first-rounder in Oct. 2018.
Historically, these deals have not been huge wins for the teams landing the wide outs. This century, just two of the 15 teams that traded for a former Pro Bowl wide receiver in-season have made the Super Bowl with that player.
The first was the 2019 San Francisco 49ers, who got 10 regular-season games out of Emmanuel Sanders en route to a Super Bowl before losing him in the offseason. The second was the 2023 Chiefs, who brought Mecole Hardman back to Kansas City after a brief stint with the Jets. Hardman did score the winning touchdown of Super Bowl 58, but was generally not a prominent part of the team’s offense.
Several other wide receiver acquisitions ended up being one-year rentals that went nowhere. In 2018, the Houston Texans exchanged two picks for Demaryius Thomas and the Philadelphia Eagles traded a third-round pick for Golden Tate during the season. They lost in the first and second round of the playoffs, respectively, and their new players were gone the next season.
More recently, Calvin Ridley played just one season with the Jacksonville Jaguars after they got him in 2022 for a third round pick. Even less worthwhile was the Chicago Bears’ giving up a second round pick that same year for Chase Claypool, who played only 10 games with the franchise.
Go back far enough, however, and there are some success stories. The New York Jets’ addition of Braylon Edwards in 2009, for instance, gave rookie quarterback Mark Sanchez another weapon and helped them advance to back-to-back AFC Championship games.
It’s interesting that wide receivers are the hottest commodity for contending teams looking to improve their rosters during the season, given the importance of chemistry with the quarterback and the difficulty of learning a new playbook. It’s not surprising, however, given the demand for the position that’s evident from recent contract values. Since 2014, the mean salary for the 10 highest-paid wide receivers has grown 160%, more than any other position in football other than quarterback, while the salary cap has not even doubled.
And if the quarterback is the most important player on the team, then what better way to keep him happy than to go out and get him a new toy to play with?
