I've not tried this, but I suspect you'll get better results by lightly coating some flat surface (such as a cutting board) with paprika and dipping the chops in after searing. That way you can control the amount of the spice that will transfer to the chop. On the downside, you'll need at least as much surface area as you have chop to cover. Let me know if that works.

Another possibility that I tested on a poached egg is to put a pile of paprika in one palm and carefully brush it off the edge of your hand with a finger on your other hand. I was able to get a fairly light coating in this way:

One advantage of this method (if it works as well on your meat as it did on my egg) is that you can more easily fill in areas that are too lightly covered (such as the front edge of the egg in this photo).