L’Jarius Sneed’s jam heard ’round the NFL of Tyreek Hill didn’t escape the attention of Miami Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel. As the dust was still settling after the Dolphins’ 26-7 Wild Card round loss to the Chiefs in frozen Kansas City, McDaniel called out Hill during a team meeting. He cued up now-famous footage of Sneed pile-driving Hill to the ground before he could even begin his route on one of many failed Dolphins plays in that game.
“Everybody see the play against the Chiefs that the [explicit] jammed me to the floor?” Hill said recently on the Million Dollaz Worth of Game podcast, “He called me out. He was like, ‘Reek, bro, you’re supposed to be [explicit] best player in the [explicit] league, and you got this guy putting hands all over you like that. We pay you all this money, for what?’”
Kudos to McDaniel for speaking an uncomfortable truth. Hill, aside from his 53-yard touchdown catch, was invisible against his old team on that frozen January evening. While Hill’s touchdown provided the Dolphins their only points of the game, he had four catches for just nine yards on his 39 other snaps that night. It was the second straight year Miami’s team MVP — and highest-paid player — vanished in the postseason. In the Dolphins’ two playoff losses since Hill joined the team in 2022, he has 12 catches on 23 targets (52.2% catch rate) for 131 yards, one touchdown, and five first downs.
The Dolphins cannot beat the best teams unless their best players play their best, and Hill knows that begins with him. What did Hill think about McDaniel’s criticism of him in front of the team?
“I love [explicit] like that. I’m going to take that [explicit] to heart and I’m going get better from it. That’ll never happen to me again to me in my life, you feel me? If a [explicit] cannot hold me accountable, I feel like I’m not going to be able to get better, you know what I’m saying? Obviously, the coaches can bypass that, just be like, ‘Ah, he’ll get better from it.’ But if he’s not saying nothing, the other guys in the locker room are going to look at it as, ‘Oh, if Reek can do it, I can do it.’ That’s not getting the team better. I need everybody to get better. Baby brother Waddle, I got him up under my wing, trying to teach him. I’m like, ‘Bro, I want everybody to get paid. Everybody deserves it.’”
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