Tyreek Hill will have a very hard time hitting 2,000 receiving yards

Tyreek Hill is going to have a very hard time hitting his goal for 2K receiving yards.

If you ask Tyreek Hill about his goals for the 2020 NFL season, he’s likely to mention two things. First, any player will tell you that a Super Bow is the ultimate goal, and for the Kansas City Chiefs, it’s all about “running it back” in 2020 as the defending champs. After that, Hill would also tell you that he’s aiming for a record-setting personal goal of 2,000 receiving yards on the season.

To be clear, if any player eclipsed 2,000 receiving yards in a single season, it wouldn’t just be a team record for the Chiefs. It would also set an NFL record. No one in NFL history has ever hit 2,000 yards, and the closest player to the mark was Calvin “Megatron” Johnson who had 1.964 yards in 2012.

For the Kansas City Chiefs, the team record is already owned by Hill when he put up 1,427 receiving yards in 2018. Any ability of Hill to gain more yards than that is simply furthering his own mark.

While the 2,000 yard goal sounds wonderful, the reality is that Hill is going to have a very, very difficult time reaching it and that’s not just because no one else has done it. Calvin Johnson came close enough that it seems reasonable enough that someone at some point will have the planets align to meet the mark. However, Hill is not exactly in the best position to do so.

Before you read too much into that last negative statement, let’s get a few things clear. First, Tyreek Hill is the NFL’s fastest player. More importantly, Hill is so much more than just the fastest in the league. He’s developed into an elite well-rounded receiver who runs great routes, has incredible hands, can make the contested catch, and tracks the ball well. He’s a dynamic offensive weapon without equal in the NFL.

That said, there are several aspects working against him here:

1. Balance

The Chiefs are far too balanced as a team as currently constructed. Tyreek Hill set the franchise record back in 2018 when the Chiefs were a lopsided roster with most of the team’s strengths on the offensive side of the ball. The defense could not stop many teams under Bob Sutton at that point, which meant the offense was in shootout mode week after week. The Chiefs scored 28 games in every loss that season and even lost a game in which they scored 51.

That season, the Chiefs had to air it out to keep up with other teams and Hill benefitted from such an approach. In the process, quarterback Patrick Mahomes won the MVP by putting up 50 touchdowns and over 5,000 passing yards, many of which went Hill’s way.

After 2018, however, Steve Spagnuolo and key acquisitions like Tyrann Mathieu and Frank Clark helped to turn around the team’s poor defensive showing from the previous season. That, in turn, meant the Chiefs didn’t have to put up such staggering offensive results just to potentially win a game.

The balance is great for the team, but it works against Hill’s stated goal of 2,000 receiving yards.

2. Lone Wolf?

When you look at the the single-season receiving leaders in NFL history, it’s apparent that many of them had very little competition for the number of targets they received. When Calvin Johnson set the NFL record in 2012, the next closest player on the Detroit Lions in terms of yardage was tight end Brandon Pettigrew with 567. The next wide receiver was Titus Young with 383.

The same is true with the next player on the list: Atlanta Falcons wideout Julio Jones. Jones caught 1,871 yards worth of passes in 2015 for an 8-8 Falcons team playing in a dome. That season, he received 203 targets (!) from Matt Ryan over 16 games and the next closest wide receiver was a fading Roddy White (who was 34-years-old) at 506 receiving yards.

Jerry Rice is No. 3 on the list with a tremendous year back in 1995 with the San Francisco 49ers in which he put up 1,848 receiving yards. The next closest wide receiver? The great J.J. Stokes who had 517 yards receiving.

Basically, Hill would need to be the Chiefs only pass catcher worthy of primary looks from Mahomes. Maybe if Travis Kelce were the only other option, but even then, none of the players who climbed to the summit of the NFL record books had anyone else approaching 1,000 receiving yards. It was the star receiver and then a roster largely void of talent (or stocked with aging talent).

Unfortunately (but not really), the Chiefs have the best tight end in the game in Kelce. They have a Tyreek-esque receiver to feed in Mecole Hardman. Sammy Watkins deserves his fair share of targets as a great physical receiver, and the Chiefs also have two running backs who are excellent receivers in Damien Williams and first-round pick Clyde Edwards-Helaire.

3. A Full Season

Every receiver in the top five of the NFL record books—Megatron, Jones, Rice, Antonio Brown, and Isaac Bruce—had to play a full 16-game season in order to reach that specific total and climb as high as they did on the stat sheet. This presents a real problem for Hill for a couple reasons.

First, a player has to stay healthy from the first to the last week for the season and likely not even have any lingering injuries which limit their ability to play any given week. That’s tough for most players in the NFL, and even last season, Hill had a sternoclavicular injury that held him out for a few weeks in the season’s first half and a hamstring that came up late.

Second, Hill is on such a good team that it’s possible for the Chiefs to have their position locked up for the postseason early. That means that Hill has a very real chance of missing a week or more at season’s end due to the team wanting to rest their players and avoid any unnecessary injury. A full season for Hill might only mean 15 games.

For Hill to reach his mark, it takes a lot more than talent. If so, Hill would already be breaking NFL records before needing to state them as goals for an upcoming season. Instead, it takes luck, health, the right team, and an unbalanced roster. While no one wants to bet against him, given those parameters, Hill isn’t likely to meet his goal with the Chiefs anytime soon.