Tyreek Hill trade signals phase two of Patrick Mahomes’ era

Happy hump day, and congratulations for living on the earth at the exact time that the 2022 NFL offseason is taking place. For some, it will take time to emotionally recover from what transpired soon Wednesday, but with good faith and some perspective, it can all turn out for the best. In the off-chance that you are reading this and do not yet know what we’re talking about here, hold onto your hat: the Kansas City Chiefs traded wide receiver Tyreek Hill to the Miami Dolphins.

I know that we all loved the Patrick Mahomes to Tyreek Hill connection, but it’s over. That’s short, and may seem impossible to say, but keeping it blunt was the plan here all along. There have been cries and fists shaken on the part of Chiefs Kingdom for Brett Veach’s participation, or lack thereof, in the wildest offseason in history. On Wednesday, they made their splash. With a cannonball off of the high dive, the ripples of the Tyreek Hill trade are what the Chiefs will sail upon into the second phase of the Patrick Mahomes era.

The Tyreek Hill trade brings a new day on the horizon for the Kansas City Chiefs in 2022 and beyond.

Episodes 3-6 of the documentary series that will tell the story of Mahomes’ legacy have begun filming, and it all starts right here, on March 23, 2022. The Chiefs’ electric offense from 2018-2022 was a bandage over the slowly healing wounds of a brutal 20 years prior, and it was swiftly removed today. On one hand, it seems challenging to justify turning away from one of, if not the most dynamic offensive weapons in the league, but on the other, there is a lot of good to come from the Tyreek haul.

Opening roughly $20M in cap space for the remainder of this offseason by getting Hill off the books allows ample room for additional free agent signings, and attaining a third and fourth selection in the top 62 picks of the 2022 draft allows Veach to seek out the missing pieces in an incredibly deep draft class.

It may be difficult to imagine the excitement that day one of the draft will bring us, but the potential for the Chiefs near future to be determined with those four picks in the first two rounds is legitimate. In a division in which each of our greatest rivals has spent the past three years doing all they could to catch up, the M.O. in K.C. has clearly become zigging while everyone else zags. Instead of burying themselves in cap space hell, they are clearing house and infusing the locker room with youth. The culture shift that took place in Kansas City from 2018-2022 will live on, but under a new regime.

There is much of this offseason that’s yet to be seen, but no matter which angle you view this news from, for better or for worse, a new horizon is upon Chiefs Kingdom.