The Long And Short of Hill's Stats, and Other Tyreek Tidbits

What Tyreek Hill's 2021 stat might tell us about how the Miami Dolphins could use next season

Wednesday marked the one-week anniversary of the mega trade that brought explosive wide receiver Tyreek Hill to the Miami Dolphins.

And in the past seven days, there has been constant chatter about how the Dolphins might wind up using Hill and how he could benefit the offense.

But what do Hill's 2021 stats tell us about this topic?

We dug into his numbers for his final season with the Kansas City Chiefs — beyond his stat line of 111 catches for 1,239 yards and nine touchdowns — to get an idea, 

The Types of Throws to Tyreek

Given a player with Hill's speed, it would figure that the Chiefs took a lot of deep shots, especially with Patrick Mahomes at quarterback. But the reality is that the Chiefs used Hill's speed more often on passes at the line of scrimmage.

In fact, the Chiefs threw almost twice as many passes to Hill at or behind the line of scrimmage (27) as they down 30 yards downfield or deeper (16).

Understand that those numbers represent the length of the pass itself, not the actual gain on the play.

The Chiefs had a lot of success with the short passes to Hill, as he averaged 6.8 yards after the catch on his 26 receptions at or behind the line (one of the attempts behind the line fell incomplete). The average net gains on those plays was 4.6 yards.

Hill had five gains of 10 yards or longer on those short passes, topped by a pick-up of 12 yards against the L.A. Chargers in Week 16 after he caught a pass at the line of scrimmage. The one time a pass behind the line to Hill backfired was in the Chiefs opener against Cleveland when he lost 2 yards after catching a pass 4 yards behind the line.

Going Deep with Hill

This actually might come as a shock to many here, but the Chiefs didn't have great success throwing deep to Hill in 2021.

Mahomes completed only four of the 16 attempts of 30 yards or longer to Hill, with three defensive penalties (two for pass interference, one for holding) and nine incompletions.

There were two touchdowns, a 75-yarder in the opener against Cleveland when Hill caught the pass 45 yards downfield and a 44-yarder at Philadelphia when Hill caught the pass at the 1-yard line.

In fact, of Hill's nine receiving touchdowns in 2021, only three were longer than 8 yards. The other one was a 12-yard score in that same Philadelphia game when Hill had 11 catches for 186 yards and three touchdowns.

What Hill's 2021 Numbers Suggest

The bottom line with Hill's numbers is that the perception of him being mostly a deep threat simply isn't justified.

Just consider that he ranked only 70th in the NFL in 2021 in yards per reception at 11.16. He also was 95th in YAC (average yards after the catch) at an even 4.0.

Going by 2021 numbers alone, Hill is more a possession receiver than a big-play threat, but his speed always provides that possibility and is something opposing defense also have to keep in mind.

And finally those numbers certainly suggest that Hill is a perfect receiver for quarterback Tua Tagovailoa, whose strength is accuracy in the short and intermediate range.

Assorted Tyreek tidbits

• GM Chris Grier on being comfortable making Hill the highest-paid wide receiver in NFL history: “I think it’s like anything. As the other moves were being made around the league, you start seeing the structures and stuff of those contracts. At the end of the day, it was about adding the player. He’s such a unique talent and for what Mike (McDaniel) and I were talking about what we needed on our offense for those dynamic catch-and-runs – obviously with (Jaylen) Waddle, we added Cedrick Wilson and then arguably Tyreek is the best run-after-catch receiver in the league. So the opportunity to add to the offense for what he does and the skillset we were looking for, we couldn’t pass on and obviously to do a deal like that, it’s talking with ownership and Steve (Ross) and Tom (Garfinkel) were fantastic in terms of what we were looking for and then Brandon (Shore) did a great job of working through with the agent to finish up the deal.”

• Grier said he felt good about Hill's character after being asked at the league meetings in Palm Beach about the background work the team did on him in light of his past off-the-field incidents: “Going forward, we feel good about it. We talked to a number of people that have been around Tyreek, especially in Kansas City the last few years. For us, we’re comfortable moving forward and the expectation, like him, will be for every player on the roster – it’s to be a good teammate and a good citizen in South Florida.”

• Head coach Mike McDaniel was asked to compare Hill to 49ers wide receiver Deebo Samuel, another speedy and versatile wide receiver and whether he planned on using Hill the same way: "From a starting point, both players are exceptional with the ball in their hands. Your starting point in terms of where you’re trying to accentuate people’s skillets, that is a commonality. As far as exact ways that we will use Tyreek Hill relative to the way that Deebo Samuel was used in San Francisco, there’s probably going to be some overlap to some degree. But those are things that Deebo Samuel evolved into that role because of both circumstance and because of skillset while in San Francisco. I expect no difference, really, with Tyreek, where we are going to start with the foundational elements of the receiver position. I promise you we’re not going to limit – or we’re going to continue the process of developing him and the Miami Dolphins football team."