Some Chiefs fans believe Tyreek Hill deserves suspension

Even a poll of mostly Kansas City Chiefs fans, a surprising amount still believe that Tyreek Hill deserves a suspension of some kind.

As the storyline for Tyreek Hill has shifted this offseason, I guess I naturally assumed that Kansas City Chiefs fans would be happy. No, let’s change that. I thought they would be ecstatic.

You know what they say about assumptions, and clearly that’s true of me here. As we put forth a poll here at Arrowhead Addict on Saturday, I was surprised by the results one day later. Specifically, while the majority of fans do believe that Tyreek Hill should be available to play from Week 1, it’s only by a small margin.

Here’s our actual poll:

If you’ve been hiding under a rock the last few months, it’s important to note just how far the conversation on Hill has shifted. Earlier this offseason, Hill and his fiancee Crystal Espinal were at the center of multiple investigations, both criminal and by family court, into allegations of child abuse and child neglect in their home. The controversy centered on a broken arm suffered by their three-year-old son.

Furthermore a local K.C. news station broadcast a partial audio recording that was damning to Hill, a threatening sound bite in which he seemed to tell his fiancee that she should be scared of him, too. Given Hill’s history with domestic violence (from his college days), the storyline strung together read that Hill is an unchanged and extremely violent man who had fooled the Chiefs up until a certain point. Now his true colors were showing as he was on the verge of a new contract extension.

Several weeks later, however, the story has completely changed. Hill has reportedly presented authorities of all kinds (police, NFL, Chiefs) with evidence that exonerates him, although the public has not yet heard the full audio recording or heard a complete version of the story from Hill. Yet the Chiefs continue to keep him on the roster and reports say he will be able to report to training camp. Word has also leaked that any NFL suspension is likely to be short (4 games of less). All of this comes after police dropped any criminal charges against Hill or Espinal.

The winds of change seemed to bring about a vocal majority who were yelling at anyone who would listen that Hill was the victim of assumptions here, that the Chiefs did well to stand by their man. As a way to gauge the conversation, we floated a poll on Saturday, and I have to admit my own prediction that was three quarters of Chiefs fans would say Hill deserved to play a full 16 game schedule.

After well over 4,000 votes, 53 percent (as of press time) said “No suspension at all.” That is a majority, but it’s a slim one to be sure. From there, 40 percent said a shorter suspension was warranted while 8 percent still believe he deserves a long suspension. It’s interesting to read some of the explanations.

Even among Chiefs fans, the story remains complicated and Tyreek Hill remains a lightning rod for various opinions about his own history. While Hill will eventually make it on the field, these differing takes among Chiefs Kingdom will make it interesting to watch how the team handles any future talks of contract extension and how it mirrors other receivers with no previous record at all.