KANSAS CITY, Mo. — On the final day of Chiefs mandatory minicamp Thursday, we’re talking about a former player and his accusations and criticism and contradictions and whatever else it was he said.
Star receiver Tyreek Hill literally left Kansas City, but with a startup podcast, his final act was an attempt to light a match and watch the flames burn while he’s on a beach in Miami.
It’s all so easy now, because what we learned Thursday is everything Hill said on that podcast — what needed to be said — could have been said on any number of occasions while he was still here, but never was.
“I’m surprised a little,” quarterback Patrick Mahomes said, “because I felt like we love Tyreek here.”
What Hill had the guts to say on a personally-branded and money-driven medium, he didn’t make known at a time when it would have actually mattered. His comments blindsided those in the building — both his eagerness to say them and their actual content.
His supposed frustration with the targets. The routes he ran. A hint of his stats being suppressed.
It only needed to be said, as it turns out, after he left town.
“I talked to him at (a) Formula One (race) in Miami in May, and everything seemed fine,” said Mahomes, who added he has not spoken with Hill since.
Which leads us to conclude what we’ve long known since the moment Hill released his podcast — much of what he said resides in the gray area between exaggeration and outright falsehoods.
We knew this already because of, well, basic logic. The full podcast was filled with contradictions. You can’t say things started to go south after an early-season trip to Baltimore but then claim you really, really wanted to stay in Kansas City.
You can’t claim you didn’t care to be the highest-paid receiver in the game, then suggest the Chiefs should trade you unless they’re willing to top the Davante Adams deal, which, guess what, just so happens to be the richest contract at the position.
You can’t expect to receive support about not getting the ball enough during a season in which you broke a franchise record for catches and saw 43% of all wide receiver targets in a pass-heavy offense.
“I’m sure it had something to do with trying to get his podcast some stuff and get it rolling,” Mahomes said, and then he basically proceeded to poke holes in some of Hill’s comments, without directly mentioning any of them.
Things began to go south early in the season?
“Definitely new in a sense of how it seemed on the podcast, I guess,” Mahomes said of whether that remark was something that had been bubbling during the season.
Not getting the ball enough?
“I feel like with the coverages we were getting, defenses were really accounting for him, so we had to go other places,” Mahomes said. “But when he’s a competitor like that, you want to have a chance to impact the game. I know he wanted to get the ball as much as possible so he could help us win. It wasn’t a selfish thing.
“We were winning football games, so I didn’t think he really brought that to our attention. Now we move on and keep going with the guys that we have here.”
The Chiefs will struggle without him?
“I still love Tyreek — he’s a one-of-a-kind player — but as you know, in Coach Reid’s offense, it takes the whole team,” Mahomes said. “This offense was rolling before I got here. This offense was rolling when I was a young Cowboys fan watching the Eagles beat up on the Cowboys. It’s an offense that’s more than one player, and that includes myself.”
Hill’s time in Kansas City is done. The Chiefs have moved on — signing receivers JuJu Smith-Schuster and Marquez Valdes-Scantling and drafting Skyy Moore — but it appears Hill is having a hard time doing the same. That’s understandable for a player who spent the past six seasons here. He put his life into this.
But the short-sightedness of the comments seems to escape him. This story lingers with him, not with the Chiefs. I don’t anticipate that Mahomes will address it again. As Hill has pointed his finger toward his former employer, he’s instead turning the attention toward himself.
He is wiping out, one by one, any excuse not to make 2022 the best year of his career. He thinks he has a more accurate quarterback than he had in Kansas City. Those were his words. Maybe the Dolphins won’t make an effort to suppress his stats. Maybe they won’t be afraid to throw him the ball even if he’s covered by a No. 1 cornerback.
Heck, maybe they will just throw and throw and throw it to him all game long. The runway is clear.
He said it.
He’s the one left with the aftermath.
