Tyreek Hill shares a killer story about Patrick Mahomes' true greatness

When Kansas City Chiefs fans see another viral clip floating around from a podcast interview with Tyreek Hill, their first reaction may be to cringe a little bit. After all, Hill has put out some pretty interesting sound bytes over the last two years, since his departure from the Chiefs in a trade with the Dolphins in 2022.

Most of the hard feelings have faded, but there have been instances (more than one, actually) when Hill has opined openly about his former teammates and his time in Kansas City in a way that felt offputting to fans.

Now if you clicked on either of the links citing Hill's previous opinions of quarterbacks not named Patrick Mahomes above, you'll find dual irony. Not only did Hill proclaim his current quarterback, the Dolphin's Tua Tagovailoa, was the most accurate in the league, but he also called the Jets' former starter Zach Wilson a "dog". Interesting.

In a recent interview on Ryan Clark's "The Pivot" podcast, Tyreek shared a story about the tenacity and high standards of the Chiefs franchise quarterback.

Some people on this site (me) have called out Hill for his previous antics in the media, sounding the horn of "enough is enough" from the former Chiefs. Well, as is the case with most knee-jerk reaction blogs, there always comes a time when said blogger (me) has to turn around and eat their crow in front of the folks who choose to read my mostly 1,000+ word essays on this site.

Hill's recent interview with Ryan Clark and company on The Pivot podcast is the catalyst for me to now turn around and digest that disgusting bird in front of all of you.

"Now Pat, Pat's a different dude," says Hill in the clip posted above. "And I'm gonna tell you how he's a different dude. We were on a bad streak, his supporting cast was playing bad: me, [Travis] Kelce, D-Rob [Demarcus Robinson], Mecole [Hardman], Sammy [Watkins]. We all were playing bad. This dude called the whole offense up. He cussed all of us the f--k out. In that moment right there, I was like, 'Yo, it's go time now.'"

Damn.

If you're like me, when you hear this you're probably instantly trying to figure out when this interaction with Mahomes and his stable of offensive weapons took place. My first thought was that this probably went down somewhere around the time the Chiefs got embarrassed in Nashville in 2021, falling to 3-4 at the time and looking like a shell of their former selves. Of course, this was the season following the Chiefs' first back-to-back Super Bowl appearances in the Mahomes era. We know how things have gone since that point.

But Hill's tone and obvious reverence for Mahomes spoke volumes to the monumental presence Mahomes has in the Chiefs locker room as well as around the league. Hill also gave us a glimpse of how the league's best quarterback handles himself when the cameras and microphones are turned off.

There were several times this past season when Mahomes came to bat for his current wide receiver corps and Travis Kelce. He defended their performance even when they were underperforming, and he continued to preach positivity even as the public perception of the team went from belief to doubt.

As polished and refined as Mahomes is in the media, it's clear that he's the definition of the "dog" that Hill politely classified Zach Wilson as when it comes to demanding excellence out of his teammates. Before the AFC Championship game against Baltimore, I wrote about the Mahomes/Brady comps and called out that perhaps we're comparing him to the wrong G.O.A.T. That now appears to be true, as the recounting that Hill shared this week sounds more like something out of the Michael Jordan playbook than anything we've heard from the NFL.

Mahomes is "built different" as the kids say, and the excellence he demands out of his teammates should not be questioned again as it might have been when he was publicly defending their honor this past season amid a slight swoon. Is he ever going to call out his teammates to the public? One could deduce that the answer is no because he's a great leader. Will he tear them down and demand accountability and excellence—holding everyone to a championship standard—behind closed doors? That answer is yes because he is a great leader.

You can tell Tyreek is somewhat enamored still by the living legend that is Patrick Mahomes. Hill has found an incredible lane in Miami as one of the league's most dynamic receivers, and he will continue to turn heads with his speed and ability to break a play open at any moment. But I have to assume there's a little sparkle in his eye behind those massive indoor shades for some reason, which leads me to believe he wouldn't mind being back in the friendly confines of Arrowhead Stadium catching bombs from one of the greatest to ever do it. A guy he clearly has worlds of respect and admiration for.

Listen, I don't think a Mahomes/Tyreek reunion is likely, but at this point, I don't think anyone would say no to it, no matter how many playful yet agitating things Hill has had to say about the Chiefs in the past. The bottom line is that with the way Mahomes put the Chiefs on his back and carried them to borderline unprecedented greatness in 2023, no one should have anything even close to critical to say about him at this point. Tyreek Hill's praise is warranted, it's welcome, and it's accurate.