Getty Miami Dolphins wide receiver Tyreek Hill at the 2023 NFL Pro Bowl Games.
Former Kansas City Chiefs wide receiver Tyreek Hill took an unnecessary shot from an ex-teammate on social media on May 4.
The joke stemmed from a tweet by The Ringer’s Kevin Clark picturing Formula One driver Yuki Tsunoda talking to the Miami Dolphins’ Jaelan Phillips. “Two elite athletes good at different stuff,” Clark wrote, alluding to an obvious height disparity between the two. Tsunoda, of Japan, is 5-foot-3 and Phillips is 6-foot-5.
That’s when retired Chiefs right tackle Mitchell Schwartz chimed in: “Looks like @cheetah and @tkelce,” the former being the Twitter handle of Hill, who is 5-foot-10, and the latter belonging to Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, who is also 6-foot-5.
The typically talkative Hill, who now is Phillips’ teammate on the Dolphins, was at a loss for words after this brutal roasting from Schwartz. His only reply was one character long and emoji-based: 😒.” Victory: Schwartz.
Odd Trend Continues From Chiefs’ Tyreek Hill Trade
A bizarre trend has emerged from the 2022 trade that sent Hill from Kansas City to Miami for a bundle of picks.
“The Chiefs did not select a single player with the picks from the Dolphins in the Tyreek Hill trade,” Arrowhead Addict’s Scott Loring tweeted on April 29. “Traded [the 2022 first] up for [Trent] McDuffie, traded back [the 2022 second] for Skyy Moore/[Darian] Kinnard, included [the 2022 fourth] in the McDuffie trade, traded [the 2023 fourth] up for Chamarri Conner, traded [the 2023 sixth] for 2024 5th round pick.”
The Chiefs did not select a single player with the picks from the Dolphins in the Tyreek Hill trade.
•Traded up for McDuffie
•Traded back for Skyy Moore/Kinnard
•Included in the McDuffie trade
•Traded up for Chamarri Conner
•Traded for 2024 5th round pick
All of the pick shuffling has made it difficult to fully assess the trade, but the simple fact is that Kansas City won a Super Bowl without Hill. That alone is enough to call the “bold and stunning move” to trade Hill, one of the league’s top receivers, a massive win for general manager Brett Veach. The financial freedom and draft capital gained allowed the Chiefs to rebuild at light speed.
Chiefs Insider Provides Behind-the-Scenes Look at Tyreek Hill Trade
In an April 17 ESPN article, Adam Teicher provided a behind-the-scenes look at the Hill trade.
“Last year, when the Kansas City Chiefs reached a tipping point with Tyreek Hill and decided his contract extension would be larger than they were comfortable in handling, general manager Brett Veach approached coach Andy Reid to begin discussions about what they would need in return if they were to trade Hill,” Teicher wrote.
He then quoted Veach, who said: “At one point, I was like, ‘You know, Coach, if we can get a [first-] and a [second-round pick], we have to at least think about it.'”
After discussing the potential fallout of a Hill trade with Reid, including what the return could turn into both via the draft and free agency, the Chiefs GM explained why KC went through with the franchise-altering move.
“The picks got a little more and the pieces started to fall together,” Veach told Teicher. “It got to the point where we said we could see it now, see that it made sense.”
He went on: “This trade was a way for us to make it work where we could still be aggressive and go after it [in 2022] but also protect our future. This amount of picks and this amount of cap space were something we felt could help us last year and down the line.”
In the end, Veach’s gamble was proved right. “Everyone knew the cap situation,” Veach concluded. “Everyone knew what the next two or three years would look like and how many players we would have to cut and how hard that would be. Everyone understood why we had to do what we did and what the plan was.”