The Dolphins game-planned for Tyreek Hill. And he still burned them. Here’s how
The most prolific tight end in football is having a career year. Travis Kelce is out-pacing the best season any tight end has ever produced. He could become the only tight end in history to lead the league in receiving yards.
All of that is to put this into context: Kelce does not believe he’s the best option on his own team. He does not believe he’s even the best receiving option on his own team.
Tyreek Hill, he says, “is the deadliest weapon in the National Football League.”
On Sunday, the Dolphins treated him like it. Their best cornerback on Hill in most spots. With safety help in many others.
And Hill still burned them. Twice.
Hill scored two touchdowns — on a 32-yard rush and a 44-yard catch — in the Chiefs’ 33-27 victory at Miami Gardens, Fla.
A quiet day by his standards, to be sure. Hill managed only 3 catches for 79 yards.
But the manner in which those scores arrived illustrate the growth of a player and a response from a coach who seemed determined to say, You will not take this man out of the game.
No matter how hard you try.
“We’re going to get him the ball in some way,” Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes said.
See, two years ago, Dolphins coach Brian Flores game-planned for this Chiefs offense, back then the defensive coordinator for the New England Patriots. He called the plays in the AFC Championship Game. His plan? Limit the damage from Hill. And it worked. Hill caught only pass that day.
In his first opportunity as a head coach, Flores didn’t alter that idea. “They had a game plan for him,” Chiefs coach Andy Reid said.
But the Chiefs altered their response.
Hill had a quiet first quarter — not even a target — so midway through the second, Reid went to something different.
Mahomes requested Hill come in motion to the end of the line, acting as though he needed help in protection. It was a ploy, of course, and Hill sprinted to take a jet sweep. Thirty-two yards later, he was in the end zone, the owner of a touchdown before he had a catch.
That’s Touchdown No. 1.
The second came in a more conventional manner. To the naked eye. Hill got behind the defense, out-ran some dudes in the secondary and Mahomes put the ball in his arms without breaking stride.
There was some deception here too, though. The Dolphins still wanted to double Hill on the play. They still attempted to double him.
The wrench? A fake.
Before he looked to Hill, Mahomes put the football in the belly of running back Clyde Edwards-Helaire before taking it back, and Edwards-Helaire scampered across the left side of the line, his size briefly hiding whether he had the football.
Miami safety Clayton Fejedelem bit. For just two steps. But that’s two too many when you’re defending Tyreek Hill. By the time Fejedelem recovered, Hill had blown by him. He’d beaten the double team so obviously that fellow receiver Sammy Watkins raised his arms as the ball was mid-flight, the ending already clear.
And on a day in which the Dolphins were set on not letting that guy beat them, he had beaten them.
Again.
“There were a lot of double teams, a lot of safeties over the top of him, and then they had a great corner in Xavien Howard on him as well,” Mahomes said. “I’m still going to trust him to make plays. I’ll throw it whenever he gets the opportunity.
“I think it’s more about him, knowing when he’s getting kind of taken out of the offense, of still maintaining and maintaining and continuing to work and work, and then all of a sudden he has a jet sweep for a touchdown and (another) big play for a touchdown.”
Part of the final product Sunday is a direct result of the play-calling. The play designs. And part of this is because Tyreek Hill in 2020 is not the Tyreek Hill of 2018.
“I just feel like each and every year, you try to become a better player and just work on your game,” Hill said two days before the game. “So, I mean obviously, that was two years ago, so I feel like I’ve become a better hands-catcher, a better route runner and just (become) better at attacking the ball and just understanding coverage. I feel like I’m better in all those aspects.”
This story was originally published December 13, 2020 at 4:06 PM.