Kansas City Chiefs rookie CB Marcus Peters has had a lot of accolades this year with a potentially big one coming in a few weeks as the favorite for defensive rookie of the year. It appears that Texans WR DeAndre Hopkins has noticed some of that attention, and is trying to get some of his own. Hopkins said this to an NFL Network reporter:
DeAndre Hopkins told me of Marcus Peters "I hope he follows me" in the game-also reminded me he had close to 100 yds in 1st game against KC.
— Tiffany Blackmon (@tiffblackmon) January 9, 2016
The Chiefs have not followed No. 1 receivers this season. Peters has played on his side and Sean Smith has played on his side. I have no reason to believe that will change so I have no clue why Hopkins is saying "I hope he follows me" unless the question was asked about that (which it probably was). The Chiefs don't do that and I would be surprised if they did in this game.
As His Dirkness said earlier, the way to handle this matchup is to always shade safety help to Hopkins' side. He is not a YAC receiver, nor a speed guy but he has arguably the best ball skills in the NFL so think more jump balls. Of course, it's easy to say what you're going to do to stop him but every team this year said that and he had 111 receptions for 1,521 yards.
By the way, here's what Peters said earlier this week when asked about Hopkins.
"He's had a hell of a year, man," Peters said. "That's big, for him. He had Andre Johnson leave him this year, so he had to step up and that's what he did. You have to respect that. But we go out there and I make my plays, he'll make his plays and hopefully the Chiefs get a W."
The Chiefs actually weren't hurt all that bad by Hopkins the first time around. He did have two touchdowns - both fades in the red zone, by the way - but almost all of his yards came when the Chiefs up 27-9. The game was over by then.