Dissecting the Latest Tyreek Talk

Miami Dolphins wide receiver Tyreek Hill says he wants to retire with the team and play until "the wheels fall off," but will he get his wish?

Tyreek Hill / Nathan Ray Seebeck-USA TODAY Sports

Tyreek Hill always seems to make some kind of news whenever he makes one of his frequent guest appearances on various podcasts, and his latest one was no different.

This time, Hill told the Around the Bar Podcast he wanted to retire with the Miami Dolphins and play "until the wheels fall off."

"I love Miami," Hill said. "I love every every bit of it. I know my wife loves it. The kids love it. My mom loves it. And it's just a beautiful city to live in, man. You know, it's so much stuff to do. Yeah. And obviously, I would I would like to retire in Miami.

"We all know how the NFL is and jobs go and people get promotions over here. And like we understand that, but yeah, Miami is a great city man. I love the team that I play on, I love the guys in the locker room. I love the head coach. I love the GM. So that means continue. That means sign me."

TYREEK HILL BACKING HIS GM

Hill is heading into the second year of the four-year contract extension he signed after the Dolphins acquired him in that mega trade with the Kansas City Chiefs in March of 2022, but he's got no guaranteed money left after 2024 and the Dolphins would save almost $23 milllion of cap space if they were to release him next offseason with a post-June 1 designation.

This isn't to suggest that's what's going to happen, only to offer that's it not out of the realm of possibility, either.

The Dolphins restructured the contract of several players this offseason to lower their 2024 cap number, and did so by adding years to their contract. They did not do that with Hill.

Hill does not have void years on his deal like many of his teammates and his cap number is scheduled to go from $31 million this year to $34 million in 2025 and $56 million in 2026 — and there's practically zero chance his contract will remain untouched if he's still with Miami at that time.

Maybe it was done as a way to influence his GM or perhaps it was simply in appreciation for the Dolphins agreeing to terms with Odell Beckham Jr., but Hill changed his Twitter profile picture to a head shot of Chris Grier on Friday.

#NewProfilePic pic.twitter.com/7x9F0MmDrf

— Ty Hill (@cheetah) May 4, 2024

What's certain is that Hill clearly likes what he's got going in Miami and wants to stick around.

"I'm very grateful where I am," Hill said on the podcast. "And I'm appreciative of where God has placed me. Yeah, I never question any of what He has for me and my family. Very blessed for all of that, man. Yeah. It's amazing what we're building in Miami. God has a Vision for that. I'm here for it, baby. I'm locked in. Our quarterback is special. Tua Tagovailoa is special. Jaylen Waddle, special. Y'all know Jalen Ramsey; he's special. So he's gonna be the leader on defense, man. So we got a real special team and very proud, very honored to be one of the leaders on this team, We got Terron Armstead on the offensive line and we've got a lot of great guys on this team. So, yeah, is this a blessing man to be on this team each and every day."

THE NEXT STEP FOR TYREEK

While Hill was named team MVP for the second time in his two seasons with the Dolphins in 2023 and flirted with the first 2,000-yard receiving season in NFL history, he kind of limped to the finish line after sustaining a high ankle sprain in the mid-December Monday night loss against the Tennessee Titans.

Hill said he learned a valuable lesson down the stretch when he clearly was playing at less than 100 percent.

"I I feel like I learned the hard way after this past year, like have really recovery and take care of your body and getting rest," he said. "And it was like, last game of the season. I was like, bro, I can't literally walk really; my wife is like, 'You need to take care of your (bleepin') body, you need to stretch, you need to (bleepin') activate your hips. You need to do this.' And it's like, Yes, I'm like, I don't even stretch before games. I just go out there and play. Cheetahs don't stretch. When It's time to hunt, we don't got time to stretch."

Hill absolutely will want to take care of his body to play as long as he wants, which is a change of stance from an earlier podcast comment when he said he likely would retire at the end of his contract.

The big question now, really, is whether he will see the end of that contract with the Dolphins, as he said on this podcast he hopes.

In the meantime, he'll continue to do what he's done.

"You never can get comfortable with your life," he said. "Like you never can get complacent with who you are as a person because there's guys in this league who are trying to transcend you and then there's guys coming into the league who are trying to take your spot. So I'm always around and I'm always trying to reach a different milestone and last year was 2000 (yards); this year, it's 2000 plus the Super Bowl. I'm grinding. I'm trying to be a better version of who I was last year. I'm trying not to drop passes. I'm trying to find different ways I can be better man. So that's the mindset, find different ways I can be better."