Miami Dolphins wide receiver Tyreek Hill is one of the NFL’s biggest stars today. Hill has been a game-changer since he was drafted in 2016 by the Kansas City Chiefs, a fifth-round pick who became a first-team All-Pro immediately in the NFL thanks to his ability to impact the return game. Time flies when you’re having fun, and perhaps it flies even faster when you’re as fast as Tyreek Hill. Apparently, the 7-time Pro Bowl selection and 4-time All-Pro is headed for an “early” retirement.
Hill, speaking via Sports Radio 810, said that he’s going to try to play 10 years in the NFL and then “call it quits” after that.
Tyreek Hill talked about finishing out his current contract with the Dolphins and then will "call it quits."
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) April 6, 2023
(via @SportsRadio810) pic.twitter.com/s0pgK5Wtyq
Of course, this is a bit alarming to hear. Hill is entering his eighth NFL season, so while his saying this gives some finality to his playing days, the end of his contract with the Miami Dolphins is still a ways away.
Tyreek Hill’s contract with the Miami Dolphins
Let’s take a look at the remaining years on Tyreek Hill’s deal in Miami (in terms of the cap hit):
- 2023: $12.823 million
- 2024: $31.073 million
- 2025: $34.243 million
- 2026: $56.308 million
The reason why Hill is talking about playing just three more seasons is that the final year of this contract was obviously built in as a way to dump salary cap dollars and it’s not really a “real” year of the contract. It’s not expressly a void year, either, so Hill is technically under contract for four more seasons, but with a base salary of $43.9 million in 2026, you can expect the Dolphins to find their way out of that deal if Hill doesn’t retire, as he states he’s going to.
Tyreek Hill slated to retire “on top” of the league?
Tyreek Hill is coming off of arguably the best season of his NFL career so far. Statistically, at the very least. He posted a career-high 1,710 yards receiving and averaged 13.8 yards per touch, his best number since 2020 and now the third-best of his NFL career. It was nothing short of shocking when the Kansas City Chiefs decided to trade Tyreek Hill last offseason, even at his enormous asking price.
He wound up getting an average of $30 million per season from the Dolphins with more than $72 million in guaranteed money, and although people may scoff at that asking price for a wide receiver, there’s no denying the impact Hill made while he was with the Chiefs and there’s no denying the impact he had on an ailing Dolphins offense last season.
Hill’s ability to play fast is extremely rare. There are plenty of guys in the NFL who ran run in the 4.3s these days. There are plenty of guys who have speed, but there are few NFL players who can operate at the speed which you see from Tyreek Hill every single week. He’s borderline impossible to cover one-on-one. He’s not just a speed threat, either. Hill has been a go-to receiver and a high-volume target type of player.
He set a career-best with 170 targets last season with the Dolphins. Kudos to Mike McDaniel for doing it right, getting Hill 10 targets every game, and kudos to Hill for capitalizing. He caught 70 percent of the passes thrown in his direction with an average depth of target of 12.2 (meaning, he’s not just catching screen passes and running for a lot of yards).
Hill is the complete package at the position. Like him or not personally, there’s no denying that he’s one of the most ridiculous players we’ve ever seen in the NFL and, frankly, one of a kind in today’s game. It is a bit surreal to know the sand timer is running out on his NFL career. It really feels like 2016 wasn’t that long ago, but Hill is already approaching his eighth NFL season.
I guess we’d better prepare ourselves for Hill to throw up the deuces on his NFL career sooner than any of us guessed he would.