It’s not like Patrick Mahomes was throwing a parade the day the Chiefs dealt Tyreek Hill to the Dolphins. No one wanted to see him go, least of all the quarterback whose skill set so perfectly matched his Roman candle of a receiver.
But by the time the trade went down, it was hardly the news to Mahomes that it became for the rest of a sports world that seemed to treat it like Kansas City general manager Brett Veach went from zero to 60 at a record clip. The quarterback was apprised throughout, from initial negotiations that seemed to have Hill destined to stay, to how Davante Adams’s contract blew that up, to Hill getting permission to seek a trade partner, to the trade itself.
And while all that, of course, doesn’t mean he won’t have to reckon with the realities of subtracting such a unique player from the offense, it did help soften the blow.
“It more surprised me whenever it got to the point where we were really considering trading him,” Mahomes said over Zoom on Wednesday, a week after the trade. “They kept me updated the entire time; I knew the extension talks were going on. And then I knew when he got the permission to seek to get traded. But I mean, still, I played my entire career with Tyreek, so definitely, there was a little bit of shock when he got traded.
“At the same time, they kept me involved the entire process, and I know that we made a tremendous effort to try to keep him in Kansas City. Tyreek, he’s such a tremendous player, he got what he deserved. I’m happy for him. And he’s at a place where he has a home and he’s closer to family and stuff. So I’m very happy for him. We had to move forward.”
Which is where Mahomes quickly turned the page.
“We had to move on and try to get as much as we could for him and try to build that receiving room again,” he continued. “And do it to where we have the ability to go out there and compete every single week, which I trust Brett Veach and Coach [Andy] Reid will do.”
This has been a busy offseason for Mahomes, and a busy one around him, too. When he and I talked, he was just back from his honeymoon on St. Barts. With Hill gone, his receiver group has been flipped, almost as drastically as the line in front of him was a year ago. The other three teams in his division have treated this offseason like a Walmart on Black Friday.
And with all that, the 26-year-old with regular-season and Super Bowl MVPs, and four home AFC title games already under his belt, moves forward to a new phase in his career, where the Chiefs really are his team in a different way than they were before. Only four players on the roster—All-Pros Chris Jones and Travis Kelce, kicker Harrison Butker and snapper James Winchester—predate him in Kansas City. He’ll be counted on, as the face of the Hunt family’s franchise, to be a big part of making up the difference.
Which makes it easy to see why Veach and Reid wanted to keep him up to date on Hill.
