Tyreek Hill reveals his reason for wanting out of KC, and it’s not what Chiefs fans think
By Mark Powell
The narrative surrounding Tyreek Hill’s departure from the Kansas City Chiefs is largely around money. However, Hill’s lack of targets also played a role.
Every NFL playmaker wants to feel needed, especially one of Tyreek Hill’s level.
Months after his departure from Kansas City and eventual trade to the Miami Dolphins, Tyreek Hill is still discussing what went wrong with the Chiefs. While he maintains that he has the utmost respect for the organization, Brett Veach, Andy Reid, Patrick Mahomes and Eric Bieniemy, Hill never felt all that valued in Kansas City.
This all stems from their financial valuation of Hill when the sides were negotiating a new deal, and the lack of guaranteed money. Hill revealed all of this to Shannon Sharpe.
Who’s to blame for Tyreek Hill’s departure from Chiefs?
It’s tough to blame either side in this case for a great player’s departure — it’s just the business side of the NFL, as even Tyreek Hill seems to understand in this case.
Kansas City valued the system they had in place. While their offense took an initial hit without a player of Hill’s stature, the Chiefs eventually found a way to make up for it with the sum of their parts, which included adding the likes of JuJu Smith-Schuster, Marquez Valdes-Scantling and more through the NFL Draft.
The Chiefs offense is just as capable as it was with Hill, only without the same gamebreaking mentality. Could that come to hurt them in the postseason? Sure. But for now, it’s tough to say KC is marginally worse than previous years with Tyreek Hill in their receiving corps.
The Miami Dolphins, however, benefitted greatly from trading for Hill and giving him the $70 million+ guaranteed he so desperately wanted. Tua Tagovailia and Jaylen Waddle have had breakout seasons in Mike McDaniel’s offense, and much of that can be credited to the attention Hill gets on any given play.
The scheme and fit works. For Hill, he is valued more than he was in KC, but that doesn’t make it a mistake to trade him away and retool.