The Chiefs moved on from an exhilarating player with a generational attribute — a trade more attractive than its immediate reception would indicate — and in turn moved on from their most confounding story. One cannot be mentioned without the other, which, in itself, is the confounding part of Tyreek Hill.
Sift through the confusion of the Chiefs trading Hill to Miami on Wednesday, and there’s a lot to like.
The business of it.
And the ideals underneath it.
Even if the latter is inadvertent.
There’s long been something uncomfortable about the opportune separation of the two, from the moment Hill arrived in Kansas City in 2016, only two years after he had pleaded guilty to strangulation of his pregnant girlfriend. Some conveniently overlooked that past, and an organization found him at a bargain because of it.
In 2019, the Chiefs signed Hill to a three-year contract extension and got him below market value because he had been investigated but not charged for alleged child abuse, also telling the mother of his son, “You need to be terrified of me, too, bitch.”
Months later, all forgotten, his name was chanted inside Arrowhead Stadium, an important piece of the eventual Super Bowl puzzle. In the NFL, after all, the statute of limitations shortens each time you reach the end zone.
It’s been more difficult to accept his embrace than understand it. It’s one thing to provide someone a deserved second chance, but Hill’s place in the city moved well past acceptance and into admiration.
We ignored the past, so long as he could run a fly pattern better than anyone in football.
And now, just as conveniently, it’s part of our past. Never happened, right?
What did happen Wednesday — Hill’s departure — came because the Chiefs were required to pay full price for the first time for this commodity. They instead returned him the hand signal he’s so often put in a defender’s face on his way across the goal line.
So long to the discomfort of the conflicting feelings of the remarkable player on the field and the issues away from it. That won’t be missed.
Will the player? Certainly, at least in the short term, but this isn’t about whether the Chiefs wanted to keep Hill. They did. They just weren’t going to guarantee him $72 million over the next four seasons to do it — Hill received that from the Dolphins as part of the trade agreement — because guaranteeing that kind of money to a 28-year-old receiver whose best attribute is speed is how franchises become handcuffed in the future.
Particularly those operating within a salary cap.
Particularly those who are paying the quarterback half a billion dollars over 10 years.
The Chiefs mostly sat out the first wave of this month’s free agency because of cap and cash restraints. At one point in his new contract, Hill will likely count more than $40 million against the cap. The Chiefs are already paying seven players nearly two-thirds of their salary cap. How can you address specific needs during an offseason with no cash with which to address them?
The Chiefs are not telling us Hill did not fit within their short-term plans — they are offering us a peek behind the curtains of their long-term operation. Their championship window, they believe, is open as long as quarterback Patrick Mahomes remains in town. This will not be the last move they make with an eye on the long-term rather than the short-term.
It’s the more sensible strategy — give yourselves more rolls at the dice table — but it’s on this front office to prove it’s worthwhile. On them to turn the draft capital into the cheap but valuable labor required to marry with a massive quarterback contract.
One of the biggest mistakes many sports franchises make is allowing valuable assets to leave for free. To know you cannot pay a player his future asking price but hold on until the very end anyway.
Then what?
It became apparent in the last few weeks that Hill’s demands and the Chiefs’ wiggle room would not meet in the middle. They could either let him play one more season in Kansas City before departing (for no return) in free agency, or they could trade him.
Yes, the trade will hurt in the short-term — the Chiefs have a worse roster for 2022 than they did a day ago — but they’ll reap the benefits in each subsequent season. The Chiefs acquired five draft selections that would not have been available to them in a year.
Lose Hill now, or lose him later. The picks were only here now.
The Chiefs did not trade Hill for five draft picks Wednesday. They traded one year of Hill for five draft picks and a whole lot of cap space. There’s a key difference there, and it makes all the sense in the world.
They will not replace Tyreek Hill. Let’s get past that thought. He is 1 of 1.
But what happens when he turns 30 in two years and his speed becomes more like 1 out of 10? What about a year later, if it becomes more like 1 out of 20? And by the way, he’s still occupying more than $30 million on your salary cap.
He doesn’t have enough other elite traits to make do with only really good speed instead of elite speed — not at the number required to keep him on the roster. He’s smaller in stature and isn’t a reliable enough catcher of the football.
You pay a player for future potential, not past performance. It’s business over loyalty.
Ultimately, the Chiefs are making a move they always knew they’d have to make — two years ago, at the Super Bowl, general manager Brett Veach was clear when he said, “We can’t pay everyone.” But they’re also making a move that telegraphs their big-picture strategy. Avoid a rebuild. Avoid bad contracts for older players.
Don’t go all-in now if it means shutting the window later.
This trade just happens to check another important box, too.