For all of the uncertainty surrounding other contracts—whether or not the Kansas City Chiefs will offer a deal or exactly when something might work out—‚with the likes of left tackle Orlando Brown Jr. or safety Tyrann Mathieu, one extension that seems to be coming into view rather well is with wide receiver Tyreek Hill.
The discussion around Mathieu is whether or not the market will price him out of the Chiefs’ future plans, while the conversation around Brown is about timing and the utilization of the franchise tag to buy some more time. However, both parties involved in Hill’s potential deal—including his agent Drew Rosenhaus—seem to be on the same page about keeping him in Kansas City for the next few years.
That’s good news for Hill, who is finally going to be paid at the level he deserves for the first time in his NFL career.
At present, Hill is scheduled to play out his final season on his current deal with the Chiefs in 2022, a three-year deal first signed in 2019 worth up to $54 million. Just like that, Hill was a rich man, loaded with generational wealth that will forever change the course of his life and his family. It was a considerable raise, to be sure, over his slotted rookie deal as a former fifth-round pick in 2016: a four-year deal worth a total of less than $2.6 million.
The Kansas City Chiefs and Tyreek Hill seem like a contract extension should be coming into view at any point in the near future.
Hill also left a lot of money on the table that offseason. Remember the order of events here was important. In the spring of 2019, Hill endured a string of false allegations that led to a child abuse investigation in what had to be a nightmare stretch of several months for Hill and those closest to him. When Hill was exonerated by the truth coming out and authorities cleared him of any wrongdoing, the Chiefs had already been forced to come up with a Plan B, which was to draft Mecole Hardman in the second round.
From there, the Chiefs were ready to commit to Hill but it was impossible to ignore the cloud of confusion at that point. Despite the drama being settled, there was the former domestic violence charge from 2014 to go with the offseason allegations in 2019, which meant the team was not going to give as rich of a commitment as they would have otherwise. Thus, the length of the deal was only three years and it was loaded with incentives like workout bonuses.
These days, Hill is drama-free off the field as a family man who is making a real civic impact to go with the fact that he’s still arguably the NFL’s most dynamic offensive weapon. That means, for the first time, Tyreek Hill is going to be paid like Tyreek Hill should be paid.
Contract terms won’t be revealed until the contract is up, but it’s pretty easy to put together the parameters that the Chiefs are going to have to pony up for four or five seasons here. While DeAndre Hopkins is averaging over $27M annually and Julio Jones gets more than $22M each year from the Titans, the truth is that both of those deals are too short-term to include here in any negotiations.
For something of the length (meaning “security) that Hill will get, Keenan Allen of the Los Angeles Chargers is the trend-setter at the top of the market at $20.025M per season over four years. There’s every reason to believe the Chiefs will best that with a $21M/year take, if not more. Perhaps they’ll even stretch out Jones’ deal with the Titans to four or five years at $22M per.
Either way, the point here is to note that Hill, for the majority of his record-setting career, has been paid below market value, including the league’s best rookie contract (speaking from the Chiefs’ perspective). It’s now good to see him get what he deserves with a ripe new deal that should reset the market.