Don’t try The Cheetah like this. Tyreek Hill is a football genius whose unmatched speed and understanding of the game help him break wide open against the best athletes in the world in a split-second. It’s naïve at best to think he wouldn’t have a quick comeback at the ready for someone trying to half-a*sedly assert that he makes the Miami Dolphins a worse team in the grand scheme of things.
That didn’t stop Miami Herald alum and current PFN reporter Adam Beasley from lobbing a take grenade into NFL Twitter and his 67,000-plus followers about the Dolphins trading Tyreek, sacrificing the 2024 campaign for longer-term gains. As you’d expect, The Cheetah was ready with a classic retort.
That’s such a sick burn that hits me where I live.
As an NFL Draft fanatic and longtime sportswriter, I’d fancy my chances as an NFL GM. That sounds delusional on the surface, but look how bad so many of the guys are who work their way into that seat. There are, in fact, sensible sportswriters and media members who aren’t pure hot take artists — and even those who specialize in the draft specifically — who have better track records of evaluating prospects than some of the people whose profession is in NFL personnel. That’s not as much a reflection of those peoples’ professional competency as it is a reflection of how much of a true crapshoot the NFL Draft is.
So anyway, carrying on this hypothetical, if I were an NFL GM, I wouldn’t hesitate to wheel and deal and do everything in my power to make my team better. What I emphatically wouldn’t do, as Mr. Beasley proposes here, is trade the literal best wide receiver in football. Argue Davante Adams, Justin Jefferson and whomever else until you’re blue in the face. I’d take Tyreek Hill every day and twice on Sunday — a very fitting saying that applies here since that’s when most NFL games are played.
Not only is Tyreek electric as a playmaker — he’s always had the back of his quarterback, Tua Tagovailoa, from Day 1 when he landed in Miami and made waves by saying Tua was more accurate than Patrick Mahomes. People forget that Tua led the freaking NFL in passing yards this season. That was a thing that actually happened, I swear. Further proof of Tyreek’s leadership and good teammate behavior: gassing up Jaylen Waddle and guarding against folks who suggest the Fins should trade him:
It’s really easy to overreact to what happened to the Dolphins at the end of the season, where they went from contending for the No. 1 seed in the AFC before Week 17 kicked off to a one-and-done playoff exit. Nobody apparently wants to acknowledge that Miami was signing dudes off the street to play EDGE because Jaelan Phillips, Bradley Chubb and Andrew Van Ginkel weren’t available against the Chiefs in the Wild Card Round.
That’s the other thing: The Dolphins lost in Kansas City in a historically freezing game. The Chiefs just won the Super Bowl. They’re pretty good. So is Patrick Mahomes. And Miami was ravaged by injuries to its interior offensive line, with elite center Connor Williams going down in the first quarter of a stunning Week 14 collapse in Tennessee on Monday Night Football. That was the real beginning of the end for Miami.
But yeah, let’s trade Tyreek Hill. That’ll fix everything.
I get that Williams, right guard Robert Hunt and stud defensive tackle Christian Wilkins are free agents this offseason. I also get that Tua, Waddle, Phillips and stud safety Jevon Holland are due to hit the open market in 2025. Literally make any other move than trading Tyreek Hill or Jaylen Waddle to secure the future of your team.
Weird vibes around cornerback Xavien Howard at the minute. How about a post-June 1 release designation to save $18.5 million in ’24 cap space, and over $7 million the year after?
That seems a far more sensible starting point than, you know, trading Tyreek Hill. Cutting Emmanuel Ogbah would save a total of $30.6 million over the next two seasons, per Over The Cap. Banged-up left tackle Terron Armstead is a great player when healthy, but a post-June 1 cut for him would create some huge savings, too.
It’s going to be a bit choppy for Miami the next couple years when it comes to dealing with the salary cap, not gonna lie. Some tough decisions will need to be made. Nailing a few draft picks in that span will go a long way. As long as Mike McDaniel is dialing up plays and has Tyreek and Waddle, with a fast-processing QB in Tua or whomever else, this Dolphins core should have a chance to make a run in the AFC.
If GM Chris Grier somehow pulls this off and the Dolphins go deep in the playoffs each of the next two years, he’ll be well worthy of Executive of the Year status. I think Grier knows shipping away Tyreek would not only be detrimental to that cause, but it’d likely cost him his job.
