Tyreek Hill continues to prove why he is NFL’s best wide receiver
Tyreek Hill is a prime candidate to win AFC Offensive Player of the Week for Week 4 after a monster game in Philadelphia. Hill caught 11 passes for 186 yards and three touchdowns, torching former teammate Steven Nelson.
Hill caught 197 yards and a touchdown in Week 1 to help the K.C. Chiefs comeback against the Cleveland Browns. After a quiet couple of weeks, Hill bounced back on Sunday against the Eagles with 186 yards.
Hill currently has 453 yards through the first four weeks of the NFL season. He is averaging a little over 113 yards per game. If Hill continues to go at the rate he is playing statistically, he is on pace to finish with a little more than 1,920 yards. That would mark the second best single-season receiving performance in NFL history behind Calvin Johnson’s 1,964 yards.
Tyreek Hill remains in the conversation for the NFL’s top wide receiver.
However, Hill’s chances of reaching that number is extremely slim because if new wide receiver Josh Gordon lives up to the hype, it might be hard for Hill to get 113 yards per game. Add in the fact that Travis Kelce, the league’s best tight end, is also sharing the field with Hill.
But there is still something to be said for Hill’s level of play, which gets discredited a lot, especially while sharing the field with Kelce and soon Gordon. Many non-Chiefs fans say Hill only gets all of these yards because he has Patrick Mahomes throwing the ball to him or that he is just fast and that is why he has great stats.
While discussing Gordon’s return to the NFL and joining the Chiefs, NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport said the Chiefs “don’t really have” a No. 1 wide receiver. Even one of the top NFL insiders today still doesn’t give Hill the credit he deserves.
Hill has been in the NFL since 2016 and defenses have not been able to stop nor contain him. Although Hill might statistically have a quiet game at times, that does not mean he didn’t do his job. Many times he attracts multiple defenders, creating Kelce or another pass-catcher to get open and have a more notable game.
Keep in mind, this is an offense that has multiple weapons with players who are the best at their positions. Kelce broke the single-season tight end receiving yards record twice. Despite sharing the field with the best tight end in the NFL, Hill broke the franchise receiving yards record in 2018 when Kelce first broke the tight end record for the first time. When Kelce broke the record again in 2020, Hill had 1,276 yards and tied the franchise record for most receiving touchdowns with 15.
Once Gordon is up to speed with the offense and gets more snaps, it will be interesting to see how many touches Hill gets. Given Mahomes is good at distrusting the football, it is likely that we hardly will even notice much of a difference, if any, in Hill’s total touches on offense.
Hill is not “just fast.” Yes, many of his touchdowns have come because he outruns defensive backs and gets wide open downfield. But he has also outplayed cornerbacks, winning plenty of one-on-one battles since his rookie year.
Hill is dynamic and dangerous. His one-on-one battles against cornerbacks don’t get enough attention. Hill may not get to Johnson’s single-season NFL record. But he will more than likely still put up big numbers, even when Gordon joins the main roster and gets more snaps over time. That will only help Hill’s case as to why he is the best wide receiver in the NFL.