Kansas City has traded away Tyreek Hill, and there's plenty of debate over how things will go for Hill himself and the Dolphins offense. The other question is how Kansas City will fare without its franchise wideout.
Thanks to injury and illness, we do have a decent sample set of the offense without Tyreek. There have been eight games the past three seasons that Hill either missed entirely or played limited snaps, usually due to suffering an injury early on.
Kansas City went 7-1 in those games, so we can reasonably say the team will continue to be firmly in the playoff mix. They should be able to patch that hole to some degree with either in-house options or perhaps a draft pick or two (it looks like a good group of wide receivers coming out, and most believe Green Bay, having traded Davante Adams, and Kansas City will be dipping into it early).
Mahomes' numbers were mostly fine. He threw at least 3 TDs in five of those eight games, and passed for 315-plus yards in five of them. His most recent three games were under 275, which probably has as much to do with defenses doing a better job against Kansas City in general as the years have gone on than anything specifically related to Hill's presence or absence.
I've long believed that Kansas City drafted Mecole Hardman as a replacement for Hill. At the time they selected him, Hill seemed in danger of a lengthy suspension (if not outright release) due to a domestic issue. That ended up going away, and Hardman has never emerged as a significant player. But in those same games that Hill missed or was limited in, Hardman did manage to deliver some of his best games: Three of his five best yardage games (in a 49-game career) and 3 of his 12 receiving touchdowns, have come in the eight games without Tyreek.
Table shows Mahomes' passing stats (M columns) and Hardman's receiving stats (H columns) in games Hill missed all or most of.
| KANSAS CITY WITHOUT HILL, 2019-2021 | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Opp | Res | Com(M) | Att(M) | Yds(M) | TD(M) | No(H) | Yds(H) | TD(H) |
| 2019 | at Jac. | W, 40-26 | 25 | 33 | 378 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2019 | at Oak. | W, 28-10 | 30 | 44 | 443 | 4 | 4 | 61 | 1 |
| 2019 | Balt. | W, 33-28 | 27 | 37 | 374 | 3 | 2 | 97 | 1 |
| 2019 | at Det. | W, 34-30 | 24 | 42 | 315 | 0 | 2 | 9 | 0 |
| 2019 | Ind. | L, 19-13 | 22 | 39 | 321 | 1 | 4 | 79 | 0 |
| 2019 | at LAC | W, 24-17 | 19 | 32 | 182 | 1 | 2 | 13 | 0 |
| 2021 | Pitt. | W, 36-10 | 23 | 30 | 258 | 3 | 3 | 31 | 1 |
| 2021 | at Den. | W, 28-24 | 27 | 44 | 270 | 2 | 8 | 103 | 0 |
We'll need to see what Kansas City adds in the draft, and what the top 3 wideouts will actually look like. JuJu Smith-Schuster, for sure, and very possibly a first-round pick.
But Hardman is definitely in the mix for one of those spots, perhaps playing a Hill-type of role, as he did in some of those games Hill missed. It's probably his last chance.
--Andy Richardson