SI:AM | What Are the Dolphins Without Tyreek Hill?

The star receiver put his team in a bind by saying he wants out of Miami.

Hill sounded interested in leaving Miami on Sunday. / Jasen Vinlove-Imagn Images

Good morning, I’m Dan Gartland. I know Sunday was a big day in the NFL, but I spent part of it taking advantage of one of the best values in pro sports: a minor league hockey game.

In today’s SI:AM:

🏆 Why every team could win the Super Bowl
🏈 The most sought-after coaching candidate
⛈️ Thunder win again

Who will Tua’s top target be next season?

The NFL regular season just finished mere hours ago and we already know what one of the biggest story lines of the offseason is going to be: What will the Miami Dolphins do with Tyreek Hill?

Hill said after Sunday’s season-ending loss that he was done playing in Miami. Speaking with reporters after the game, he first spoke vaguely about a need to “do what’s best for me and my family” but then stated his intentions more clearly when pressed.

“I’m [about to] open that door for myself, dog,” Hill added. “I’m opening the door. I’m out, bro. It was great playing here, but at the end of the day I got to do what’s best for my career. I’m too much of a competitor to be just out there.”

Coach Mike McDaniel tried to downplay Hill’s comments.

“I’m not going to put too much weight on secondhand postgame disappointment statements,” McDaniel said. “We will see how the next couple days progress in convos with him and I.”

Hill is coming off one of the worst seasons of his pro career, having caught 81 passes for 959 yards. The only other times he failed to crack the 1,000-yard benchmark were as a rookie in 2016, when he played and in ’19, when he missed four games with a shoulder injury. His down year comes after a career year last season in which he led the league in receiving yards (1,799) and was tied for the league lead with 13 receiving touchdowns. He was just the eighth player since the AFL-NFL merger in 1970 to average at least 110 receiving yards per game (minimum 10 games played).

It isn’t a coincidence that Hill’s monster season came in the first season in which quarterback Tua Tagovailoa played every game. But the QB missed six games this year due to a concussion and a hip injury. Hill was held to just 14 catches for 140 yards in the first four games that Tagovailoa missed, the last of which was a Week 7 loss to the Indianapolis Colts in which Hill was targeted just twice by quarterbacks Tyler Huntley and Tim Boyle. Hill wasn’t sweating the lack of targets, though.

“You are going to have ups and downs. I understand how it goes,” he told reporters later that week, after Tagovailoa returned to practice. “I’m not going to lose my head over football. I’m going to control what I can control, which is running the right routes, being in the right spot, being a good teammate.”

It seems like something has changed, though. His quote “I’m too much of a competitor to be just out there” after Sunday’s game makes him sound like a guy who’s frustrated with his role in the offense. He caught nine passes for 105 yards from Huntley last week in a win over the Cleveland Browns but was held to just two catches for 20 yards in Sunday’s must-win game.

If Hill is serious about leaving Miami, it puts the Dolphins in a real bind. Trading him before June 1 would provide negligible salary cap relief for the Dolphins. According to Spotrac, Miami would save $401,250 on its cap if Hill is traded before June 1 and $15.9 million if he’s traded after June 1. Unfortunately for Miami, a pre-June 1 trade makes much more sense, not just so that the Hill situation doesn’t drag on but also because they’d be able to trade him for picks in this year’s draft. Building a playoff-caliber team for 2025 becomes a lot harder if the Dolphins have Hill’s $28.7 million cap hit on the books but don’t have Hill on the roster. Trading him could also be difficult. How many teams are going to want to pay nearly $30 million to a 31-year-old receiver whose primary skill is his speed and is coming off a down year?

Even if Hill doesn’t return to his usual All-Pro form next season, the Dolphins would still miss him. Pairing Tagovailoa, Hill and McDaniel in 2022 allowed Miami to take an enormous leap forward offensively. Tagovailoa was a middling quarterback in his first two seasons but has thrived since Hill’s arrival, posting passer ratings over 100 each of the past three seasons. He’s the only quarterback in the NFL to have done that.

Losing Hill would surely have a negative impact on Tagovailoa’s play. The Dolphins do have another top-notch receiver in Jaylen Waddle, but he also took a step backward this season after crossing the 1,000-yard barrier in each of his first three years. Still, whoever filled the No. 2 role behind Waddle would be a level below the Hill-Waddle pairing.

Hill sounded Sunday like a man who had made up his mind to give it a shot somewhere else, but the Dolphins’ chances of a return to the playoffs in 2025 may hinge on McDaniel convincing him to give it another go in Miami.

OKC extended its winning streak to 15 games Sunday. / Alonzo Adams-Imagn Images

The best of Sports Illustrated

• Albert Breer made a case for why each NFL playoff team could win the Super Bowl.

• Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson will be the biggest target on the NFL coaching carousel this winter. Conor Orr laid out the most likely destinations for the popular candidate.

• Michael Rosenberg was at the Lions’ convincing, division-clinching win over the Vikings and came away convinced that the game showed why Jared Goff is more prepared to lead a team to the Super Bowl than Sam Darnold.

• Matt Verderame graded every non-playoff AFC team’s season, and Gilberto Manzano did the same for the NFC.

• The Thunder stretched their winning streak to 15 games with a comeback victory over the Celtics on Sunday. Chris Mannix has more on how OKC’s gritty performance showed it should be taken seriously as a title contender.

• The Australian Open begins this week. If you’re lucky enough to be going (or even if you’re just dreaming of a trip there), Jon Wertheim has some tips on how to get the most out of the experience.

• Doug Pederson was the first NFL head coach fired on Black Monday.

• The Giants, meanwhile, will retain coach Brian Daboll and GM Joe Schoen.

The top five…

… plays from the final day of the NFL regular season:

5. Jahmyr Gibbs’s acceleration through a tight hole for a touchdown.
4. Mike Evans’s catch on the final play of the Bucs’ win to secure his 11th straight 1,000-yard season.
3. Josh Blackwell’s tricky 94-yard punt return touchdown for the Bears. Chicago pulled the same stunt against the Packers in 2011.
2. Packers receiver Malik Heath’s leaping catch.
1.The Broncos’ bizarre touchdown on a pass that was tipped multiple times.