Kansas City Chiefs receiver DeAndre Hopkins has acclimated well to Andy Reid’s offense and has become a key weapon for Patrick Mahomes.
Having played eight games, Hopkins has 393 yards and four touchdowns and with each passing week, he gets more comfortable in the system, but now comes a challenge of a different kind.
Hopkins will face his former team, the Houston Texans, an organization that drafted him and where he spent seven years. But he has also had stops in Arizona and Tennessee, so the heartstrings won’t be pulled as hard.
And DeAndre is approaching it just like any other game.
“No, it doesn’t,” Hopkins said, sounding off on if there’s extra significance playing Houston. “I still live in Houston as well I know some of those guys so I see them in offseason but it doesn’t really have any more significance than any other game to me.”
So it will be business as usual for Hopkins, but there can be no doubt that he will want to play well against one of his former teams, and being at home, the Chiefs can take another step forward in clinching the AFC’s No.1 seed.
Hopkins has had to deal with not being “the” guy in Reid’s offense, and he’s adjusted superbly well. Some weeks, he is the star man; other weeks, he is just a cog in the machine, but there is a big prize that he’s fighting for – that elusive first Super Bowl ring.
With the Chiefs looking certain to have home-field advantage for the playoffs, they have a great chance at making it to the big dance.
But before that, three games have to be navigated, and with the Texans up next, Hopkins is keeping things simple despite having every reason to want to do a bit extra against his former team.
