Jeff Roberson/Associated Press
Tyreek Hill had only been in the NFL for one season by the time quarterback Patrick Mahomes joined the Kansas City Chiefs and it appears the wideout’s talent evaluation skills weren’t too refined.
Hill joined Inside The NFL after his 269-yard, three-touchdown performance against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Sunday and revealed how little he thought of Mahomes when the Texas Tech product showed up in K.C.
“I thought he was trash,” Hill said. “When he first got here I was like, ‘This is who y’all drafted right here?'”
To be fair to Hill, he wasn’t alone in his thinking.
Nine other NFL teams passed on an opportunity to draft Mahomes before the Chiefs grabbed him at No. 10—that list includes the Chicago Bears, who traded up to No. 2 and picked Mitchell Trubisky out of North Carolina.
But the plan wasn’t for Mahomes to join Kansas City and immediately take over the offense. He sat behind Alex Smith for a year, and by the time Hill had a chance to re-evaluate Mahomes the following season, he completely changed his mind.
“That second year, his quarterback mechanics were different,” Hill said. “It was like he was spending more time with his quarterback coach, spending more time with coach [Andy] Reid learning the offense. Dude was, like, different.”
The rest of the league learned the same thing rather quickly.
Mahomes passed for 5,097 yards, 50 touchdowns and 12 interceptions in his first full season as a starter, winning NFL MVP in the process. He’d capture Super Bowl MVP the following year and sign a contract extension worth half a billion dollars shortly after.
Hill might not have seen the bigger picture during his first practice with Mahomes, but he certainly gets it now as Kansas City remains the league’s model franchise.
