“Well that escalated quickly!”
--Ron Burgundy, Anchorman
The offseason arms race in the AFC has been almost out of control the past couple weeks, with significant trades and free-agent signings happening on a near-daily basis. Now the latest landscape-altering move has taken place much closer to home, and it is not good news for the New England Patriots.
In a fast developing story, wide receiver Tyreek Hill has been traded from the Kansas City Chiefs to the Miami Dolphins for a haul of draft picks. Reports had contract talks between Hill, a six time Pro Bowler and three time First-Team All Pro speedster, and the Chiefs breaking down, thus allowing him to seek a trade. The Dolphins emerged quickly as the frontrunner, pulling off the blockbuster and then quickly inking the game-changing receiver to a four-year, $120 million extension. Another wild move of a major player in the wildest offseason in NFL history.
From a conference perspective, this is a massive move. The Dolphins have been very aggressive since the 2021 season ended. They fired coach Brian Flores and hired former 49ers offensive coordinator Mike McDaniel to replace him. Plus they signed receiver Cedrick Wilson, speedy running backs Chase Edmonds and Raheem Mostert, massive offensive tackle Terron Armstead, franchise tagged tight end Mike Gesicki, and now have brought in Hill to pair up with second-year receiver Jaylen Waddle. These moves give Miami, on paper, a drastically different offense from last season, one built on speed and motion that might be very difficult to contain.
From a Patriots perspective this trade isn’t great news, to say the least. Regardless of what Miami gave up, Hill makes them a better team and more dangerous offense immediately, with some saying perhaps the fastest offense in the NFL. He’s arguably the fastest receiver in the league and has been the spark behind the league’s best offense the past four season. Hill has averaged over 1,200 yards and 10 TDs a season for the past five years and is a threat to score any time he has the ball in his hands. When paired up with a creative offensive mind like McDaniel, Hill might be able to make people forget that he’s downgrading in quarterback, going from Patrick Mahomes to Tua Tagovailoa. Hill is is a nightmare to defend all over the formation, and McDaniel just helped turn Deebo Samuel into an offensive super weapon in 2021. With talk of him perhaps doing the same with Waddle in 2022, and now the addition of Hill? This is the stuff of nightmares for defensive coordinators. Or however you like to assemble your defensive coaching personnel.
Getting to the Super Bowl again, or any time soon, is getting more difficult by the day, with teams like Denver, Las Vegas, Tennessee, Cincinnati, Indianapolis and the Los Angeles Chargers all making large scale moves to improve. Several of them improving at the expense of the Patriots, no less. While none of those moves are guaranteed to pay off or come with guarantees of players remaining healthy, the case can be made that all of those teams are better than when they ended the 2021 season. That’s just the conference as a whole in an unprecedented arms race.
Looking to the AFC East...the defending two-time champion Buffalo Bills have improved on both sides of the ball and will absolutely be coming into the season with an “Unfinished Business” attitude. Now the Dolphins, who have won three of their past four against the Pats and have an excellent defense to boot, drastically turbocharged their new offense in an effort to keep up with Buffalo and the conference. The Jets are also having an under-the-radar quality offseason and have two of the first 10 picks in the upcoming draft, but it’s not their time yet.
Pair all of this with the, shall we say, deliberate and modest start to free agency in Foxboro and the 2022 season looks more challenging than imagined for the Pats. New England has prioritized retention of veteran leadership and value-based spending as opposed to last season’s wild shopping spree thus far. Seems like not the best offseason to have lost your top corner and lost out on some coveted offensive targets due to financial limitations as well. It’s difficult enough to keep up in your division, let alone conference, under normal circumstances. But these AFC and now AFC East changes are going to make the work for Bill Belichick, Mac Jones and company, with an evolving roster, that much more difficult.
Predictably the confidence of some Foxboro Faithful remains in place despite a division foe making major upgrades.
For those who’ve watched if not admired the offensive explosiveness of the Chiefs in recent years, and seen how competitive the Dolphins have consistently been, today’s transaction can’t make any Patriots fan feel better. Over half the conference, and the majority of your division, has improved. And now Miami is better than yesterday, and potentially better than the Pats.
Even those who have lost talent like the Chiefs now have the draft capital to bolster their ranks and remain competitive with arguably the conference’s best QB in place. And though the 2022 New England football team is far from constructed, there’s no way to see Tyreek Hill joining their division as anything less than a pain, challenge and brand new if not familiarly fast obstacle for the brilliance of Belichick and the rebuilding Pats.
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