Giants wide receiver Jalin Hyatt fits the Chiefs trade mold under GM Brett Veach

The Kansas City Chiefs are 3-0 despite overcoming quite a bit of adversity when it comes to injuries. They've been without key free agent addition Marquise Brown for the whole season and are now expected to miss Isiah Pacheco for an extended period of time as well. The Chiefs are now in a position where they are relying on a 165 lb. rookie (Xavier Worthy) and a veteran tight end in his 12th season in the league.

While the Chiefs do have depth with players like Justin Watson, Skyy Moore, JuJu Smith-Schuster and Mecole Hardman, only one of those players (Moore) is under contract for 2025. In fact, the Chiefs only have Rice, Worthy, and Moore under contract at the position for 2025. We know the Chiefs love a small shifty receiver who can separate. Enter New York Giants receiver Jalin Hyatt.

Who is Jalin Hyatt?

Hyatt is in his second year in the NFL after being drafted in the third round (pick 79) of the 2023 NFL Draft. He was Dane Brugler's third overall WR prospect in the 2023 draft (over Rashee Rice) coming out of Tennessee. A former four-star recruit ,Hyatt was the recipient of the prestigious Biletnikoff Award in 2022 over Marvin Harrison Jr.

Hyatt logged over 1,750 yards and 19 touchdowns in his three-year career at Tennessee. He has a dominant trait that helped him thrive in the Josh Heupel offense: game-changing speed.

With all of the collegiate success, it might be surprising to find out that Hyatt fell all the way to the third round. This was rooted in two things: his size and his route running. At 6-0 and 176 lbs., Hyatt is in just the 5th percentile all-time for receiver weight and the 35th percentile for height. Some teams just won't draft players at the position that are so undersized.

Also, the offense that Tennessee ran had a very defined role for Hyatt. Everything he ran was either a deep route (post or corner) or at the line of scrimmage. The route running and elite speed is what separated a player like Xavier Worthy from Hyatt in the following draft.

Why would Jalin Hyatt be available?

After an encouraging rookie season (23 catches for 373 yards) with 3 different starting quarterbacks Hyatt has gone without a catch all of 2024. He's only been targeted twice and is getting outsnapped (19%) by emerging star Malik Nabers, Wan'Dale Robinson, and Darius Slayton. There were also some rumors about Hyatt's frustration with his role in the offense during camp—even going as far as to tell coaches to "trade me" due to usage.

The Giants are a long way from competing for the division or the Super Bowl. Head coach Brian Daboll and general manager Joe Schoen are likely both fighting to keep their jobs this season. Riding the future of your career on Daniel Jones would be scary for anybody.

Hyatt still has two more years of control due to being drafted just last year, but we've seen the Giants move a player in the same circumstance to the Chiefs before (Kadarius Toney). If the Giants aren't going to use him, they might as well recoup some much-needed draft value and move on.

How would Jalin Hyatt Fit?

Before the 2024 season began, the addition of Jalin Hyatt would not have made sense for the Chiefs even with their love for speed and explosive offenses. The Chiefs don't rely on big-bodied receivers, but it's not realistic to have a receiver room with Mecole Hardman, Xavier Worthy, Marquise Brown, and Jalin Hyatt. That group is just so small and redundant that it wouldn't make sense. However, now that we expect to not see Brown for all of the regular season, Hyatt starts to make much more sense.

There's already been some concern of Worthy's role in the offense through 3 games. Most of that is related to the fact that he's not hitting on big plays down the field and is being mostly used in gadget plays at the line of scrimmage. Part of this is due to the importance of creating space for players like Rashee Rice, Travis Kelce, and the running game as well. Worthy is being respected downfield unlike Marquez Valdez-Scantling, but it feels like that's wasting his role.

Hyatt could be the vertical stretch element of the offense freeing up Worthy to run a variety of other routes. Also, having both him and Worthy with game-changing speed is an interesting threat in the screen game as well. Hyatt only took 11% of his snaps in 2023 from the slot meaning he wouldn't be cutting into slot snaps for Rashee Rice or Xavier Worthy.

Hyatt makes sense in the present, but he also makes sense for the future as well. While still being a cost-controlled player, he can remain the deep threat this offense needs. Even with Marquise Brown in Kansas City this year, the goal was for Worthy to turn into a similar type of player who can run a full route tree and still stretch the field.

Should the Chiefs trade for Hyatt?

Like any trade, it's going to depend on the cost to acquire the player. Given that he was a third-round pick and will be more than a year into his NFL career, it's reasonable to think that the Chiefs could give up a high-end day 3 pick for Hyatt. The Chiefs have an extra third-round pick from the L'Jarius Sneed trade that might afford them to move off their fourth or fifth-round pick if needed.

Hyatt might not be much more than a small deep threat and screen option or maybe he can grow as a route runner in an offense that leverages separation. His size limitations will always be a part of his profile but that's not stopped the Chiefs yet at acquiring speed. The Chiefs seem to have an affinity for acquiring former Giants receivers and Hyatt might be the next part of that story.