Former NFL executive Andrew Brandt provided a rationale for why he believes the Kansas City Chiefs have already won the Tyreek Hill trade between them and the Miami Dolphins.
“The 2022 offseason brought a couple of combination trades and signings that had a dramatic and continued impact on the business of football for NFL teams and wide receivers,” Brandt wrote for Sports Illustrated. “Tyreek Hill was traded from the Kansas City Chiefs to the Miami Dolphins and [Davante] Adams was traded from the [Green Bay] Packers to the [Las Vegas] Raiders; both trades netted not only roughly first- and second-round picks for the trading teams but simultaneous top-of-market contracts that set a new market for the wide receiver position at a $25 million annual average (although there are some phony parts to those contracts, more on that below).
“The trades illustrated two distinct management strategies at that position. The Dolphins and the Raiders chose to be all in on a star, allocating significant draft and financial resources to the player, betting on Hill and Adams pushing the teams to, as they say, ‘the next level.’ In stark contrast, the Chiefs and Packers chose to take the opposite tact: to allocate those resources elsewhere and go younger (and cheaper) at the position.
“As we look back on the results to this point, it is hard to argue with the more conservative strategy. Yes, Hill has made a difference for the Dolphins with his blazing speed, but they have not moved past the wild-card round of the playoffs. Adams’s discontent follows the team shedding the quarterback he signed up to play with—Derek Carr—and visible frustration with the replacements. He now wants out of an acquisition gone sour.
“Now to the other strategy. The Chiefs are defending back-to-back Super Bowl champions with a wide receiver group of draft picks and mid-level free agents. The Packers have had sustained success through a quarterback transition with the most inexpensive group of wide receivers in the league (the seven players barely make $7 million).
“In a business all about winning, it is now reasonable to say the Chiefs and Packers ‘won’ those trades of star receivers.”
The Dolphins traded five draft picks to the Chiefs in exchange for Hill, who spent the first six seasons of his NFL career in Kansas City. Hill was fortunate enough to play with quarterback Patrick Mahomes for much of that span.
Not many people are likely to argue that Tua Tagovailoa is a better quarterback than Mahomes, but in Hill’s first two seasons in Miami, some of the receiver’s numbers were better than they ever were in Kansas City. After failing to total 1,500 receiving yards in any of his seasons with Mahomes, Hill racked up 1,700-plus receiving yards in the 2022 and 2023 regular seasons.
In addition, he carved out maybe the best receiving campaign in the history of the Dolphins franchise in the 2023 regular season. Hill totaled 1,799 receiving yards across 16 games played (all starts), marking the most receiving yards ever from a Dolphins player in a single season to break his own record from the previous season.
However, as Brandt mentioned, the Dolphins haven’t been able to parlay Hill’s historic receiving numbers into playoff success, as Miami hasn’t won a playoff game in more than two decades.
Plus, Miami is currently in danger of missing out on the playoffs entirely, and Hill hasn’t picked up the slack in the absence of Tagovailoa, who hasn’t played since Week 2. The Dolphins own a 2-3 record on the season, and their best wide receiver from a season ago has looked like a shell of his best self at times. He is certainly missing Tagovailoa.
To put into perspective just how much Hill has seen his production dip, after averaging a league-high 112.4 receiving yards per game in the 2023 regular season, he is now averaging around half that number (57.2) through five games.
Conversely, while the Dolphins are in desperate need of wins, the Chiefs look like perhaps the best team in the NFL at the moment. Kansas City is one of only two teams in the league that has yet to pick up a loss. The Chiefs are set up for sustained success as well with Andy Reid and Mahomes locked into long-term contracts.
