The Kansas City Chiefs rely heavily on Tyreek Hill, but the speedster could keep Bill Belichick and the Patriots up at night ahead of the AFC Championship.
Tyreek Hill has undeniably established himself as an electric weapon in the Kansas City Chiefs offense. However, he ended the regular season with a bit of up-and-down play, posting two games with under 50 receiving yards and only scoring in one of his final five games of the season. He bounced back in a solid way in the snow against the Colts in the Divisional Round of the 2019 NFL Playoffs.
In the decisive win for the Chiefs, Hill played a massive factor as he caught eight balls (on 13 targets) for 72 yards and took his lone rushing attempt for a 36-yard touchdown. Maybe that’s not an overwhelming performance, but it was still highly impactful.
Now eyeing down Bill Belichick and the New England Patriots in the AFC Championship Game, though, the Chiefs could look to Hill even more. Put simply, the speedy wide receiver has a chance to be the boogeyman hiding under the bed of the defending conference champions.
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Hill has played against the Patriots twice over the past two seasons, in Week 1 of the 2017 regular season and in Week 6 of the 2018 regular season. Combined in those two games, Hill has 14 receptions for 175 yards and four touchdowns, with three of those scores coming in the regular season this year.
There are few defenses that can match the speed and quickness that Hill offers when he gets into space, if any at all. However, there are many units that are better equipped to defend that type of thing with the players on their roster. The Patriots, however, are not one of those teams.
Despite how dominant they were against Philip Rivers and the Los Angeles Chargers in the Divisional Round, the Patriots defense has two big weaknesses: Their pass rush and their team speed. Both of those things are something that Hill in the Chiefs passing offense can exploit in a major way.
With the Patriots’ apparent inability to consistently get after Patrick Mahomes, that will allow time for Hill to separate from defensive backs that can’t keep up with him or even to start freelancing and then get his separation. Moreover, with the way that he can escape tackles, those situations will allow him to show just how inadequate the speed of New England’s defense is in relation to his own athletic traits.
It’s certainly worth noting that, even in spite of Hill’s massive three-touchdown game in the regular season against the Patriots, the Chiefs still lost to New England in that matchup. Thus, this isn’t to say that the Patriots can’t stop Hill so they’re going to lose.
However, what this is to say is that Kansas City has a matchup that they can look to exploit time and again in this game, both as a big-play threat and as a safety valve when they have the ball. Hill is their Weapon X in the AFC Championship Game and, if he’s not trying to put the New England defense on their heels, Andy Reid’s gameplan will have gone terribly awry.