Davante Adams was the highest-paid wide receiver in the league for five days.
Tyreek Hill stole the crown when he signed a four-year, $120 million deal with the Dolphins yesterday.
The above sentence would have been unfathomable two days ago, but a deal between the Chiefs and Dolphins materialized in what seemed like hours on Wednesday morning. Madden gamers, rejoice: Hill and Jaylen Waddle form potentially the fastest wide receiver duo ever. Tua Tagovailoa has weapons in excess as he looks to break out in Year 3. Mike McDaniel has plenty of toys to play with in his first year at the helm.
On the flip side, JuJu Smith-Schuster is now the Chiefs’ WR1, although Travis Kelce remains their top pass catcher. Kansas City does have two picks in the late first round of the 2022 NFL Draft, and one would think they’ll look to bolster their receiving corps now that Hill is in South Beach.
With all that being said, let’s take a look at how ETR’s projections changed as a result of this trade.
TYREEK HILL
Old projection: 95.7 catches on 146.8 targets for 1,258.8 yards and 9.6 touchdowns. WR5 on Underdog.
New projection: 80.1 catches on 123.6 targets for 1,032.2 yards and 7.5 touchdowns. WR12 on Underdog.
- Hill falls to low-end WR1 status with the Dolphins. He goes from one of the pass-happiest attacks in the league with the Chiefs to a more balanced offense in Miami, plus he arguably has more target competition on his new team as opposed to just Kelce and Smith-Schuster. He’s still the most potent deep threat in football and one of the more efficient receivers of this generation, so he remains a fringe top-12 option, but Hill is no longer the electrifying top-five fantasy option he was in Kansas City.
JUJU SMITH-SCHUSTER
Old projection: 66.0 catches on 97.9 targets for 746.0 yards and 5.0 touchdowns. WR40 on Underdog.
New projection: 85.4 catches on 126.6 targets for 965.5 yards and 6.4 touchdowns. WR25 on Underdog.
- Smith-Schuster is now the de facto WR1 in Kansas City, and we increased his target share from 15.1% to 19.5% as a result. However, Kelce is still the alpha in this offense and commands the target share of a high-end WR1, so Smith-Schuster can be at best a distant second place. Plus, the Chiefs will add to their WR room in free agency and/or the draft, and they’ll likely add multiple guys. They have two first-round picks and seven picks in the first three rounds. More pass catchers are on the way, so we kept Smith-Schuster’s target share in check for the most part.
- With that being said, there’s no denying that Hill’s departure is a major positive for the former Steeler, and we currently have him flirting with top-24 status.
TRAVIS KELCE
Old projection: 94.8 catches on 137.6 targets for 1,172.6 yards and 8.9 touchdowns. TE1 on Underdog.
New projection: 99.7 catches on 144.7 targets for 1,233.3 yards and 9.3 touchdowns. TE1 on Underdog.
- Kelce’s five-year run atop the tight end position ended last year at the hands of Mark Andrews, but he’ll have a strong chance to regain the throne as Patrick Mahomes‘ clear top target.
- Kelce’s target share was already robust enough that we didn’t increase it too much now that Hill is gone — especially since we expect the Chiefs to add multiple wide receivers — but the 31-year-old did see a minor boost. More importantly, he now ranks 11th overall in our Underdog rankings.
OTHER CHIEFS PLAYERS
- Mecole Hardman‘s spot on the depth chart is fragile given the likelihood the Chiefs add someone, but his path to relevancy inarguably gets easier without Hill in the way. Whoever else Kansas City adds won’t be the target hog Hill was, so Hardman could provide spike-week upside as a speedy deep threat. He ranks as a top-50 receiver in our rankings with Hill gone.
- Lamar Jackson was already our QB2, but he distanced himself from Mahomes now that the latter won’t have his usual reliable deep threat. Besides Kelce and Smith-Schuster, the Chiefs don’t have a pass catcher worth getting excited for. Any free agent or rookie they add will help, but that player won’t be in the same stratosphere as Hill as a talent (barring an unforeseen trade, which we’ve seen over the past few weeks is always a possibility!).
JAYLEN WADDLE
Old projection: 93.3 catches on 134.8 targets for 1,001.0 yards and 5.8 touchdowns. WR13 on Underdog.
New projection: 85.6 catches on 123.6 targets for 983.9 yards and 5.3 touchdowns. WR15 on Underdog.
- Waddle was so impressive as a rookie that we were hesitant to knock him too much, even though Hill should command robust volume. We currently have Hill and Waddle even in target share, but Hill gets the edge rankings-wise due to his history of elite efficiency. Still, McDaniel has raved about Waddle all offseason long, and the Alabama product posted an absolutely ridiculous 24.0% target share as a rookie. The ancillary weapons may suffer, but Hill and Waddle can both be weekly must-starts in fantasy.
OTHER DOLPHINS PLAYERS
- DeVante Parker may be on his way out of Miami. The Dolphins traded for Hill, signed Cedrick Wilson to a three-year, $22 million deal in free agency, franchise-tagged Mike Gesicki, and we all know McDaniel has been conducting the Waddle hype train ever since he got hired. That leaves Parker as the odd man out for the Dolphins. There are plenty of wideout-needy teams who could take on Parker’s affordable contract. Just like how Robert Woods was traded after the Rams got Allen Robinson, it’s likely Parker will find a new home sometime this offseason.
- 2022 is a do-or-die season for Tua Tagovailoa. He has some of the most dangerous weapons in the league, plus Miami committed to protecting him by signing star tackle Terron Armstead to a massive five-year deal.
- Hill and Waddle should both post monster target shares, which makes the path to fantasy viability significantly tougher for Gesicki and Wilson. Gesicki fell from TE10 to TE12 in our rankings, and Wilson dropped from WR83 to WR101.
