What does the Tyreek Hill trade mean for the Chiefs next season?

After I found out that the Kansas City Chiefs had traded Tyreek Hill to the Miami Dolphins, I spent most of the day shocked, sad, kind of angry, and really just trying to process the whole thing.

My girlfriend, who admits to her limited knowledge of football, tried her best to empathize with me. She asked, “What does this trade mean for the Chiefs next season?”

It’s a really good question, and one I immediately began to ponder. My initial answer is that we don’t know. In the short term, it’s hard not to see this trade as a net loss for the Chiefs. They just lost their top wide receiver, who happened to be one of the best wide receivers in the league.

What does losing their top wide receiver mean for the Kansas City Chiefs next season. The short term and long term impact is up in the air.

It doesn’t matter how great our quarterback is, that one is going to sting for a long time. Almost as long as Jet Chip Wasp will be stinging 49ers fans (thanks Tyreek!) The good news is that the Chiefs got a decent return for Hill.

Now, it’s debatable how good that haul really is, and for many Chiefs fans, it will simply never be enough. But it was five picks. Compared to what Green Bay got for Devante Adams, that’s pretty good. Three of those picks, including a first-rounder, will be in this year’s draft. It will be up to Andy Reid and Brett Veach to capitalize on those picks to make this trade even somewhat worth it in the short term.

Assuming even one of those picks pans out a little bit, it could lessen the blow next season. Especially if it’s on defense – a major focal point this offseason, which has been questionably addressed so far, to say the least.

The other side of the trade is of course the salary cap space. The Chiefs freed up something like $20 million dollars right away by turning the Cheetah into a Dolphin. They also are no longer responsible for paying him at least $75 million over the next three seasons.

Let’s take a moment to recognize that Cheetah deserves every penny of that contract. He’s worth it, and he’s been worth it. That number is way higher than I predicted last summer in my now freezing cold take of an article.

But it may also end up being a good thing that the Chiefs aren’t the ones paying it. It will give more cap flexibility to sign other stars this offseason and next (hopefully).

So what does this trade mean for the Chiefs next season? As I said in the beginning, it’s hard to tell right now. The full weight of this trade will take a few years to truly grade, once the draft picks are made and the players evaluated. It goes both ways too—if Hill suddenly has a drop-off, it could look like a bargain for the Chiefs, regardless.

But, every single draft pick could also bomb, and the free agents the Chiefs spend that money on could flame out quickly. Then this trade would be an absolute disaster. Every single person will probably see the potential impact of this trade differently. In Veach we trust, I guess?