The biggest NFL trades and signings of 2022 seem far from over, especially as the 2022 NFL Draft rapidly approaches. In today's NFL news, star wide receiver Tyreek Hill has just been traded from the Kansas City Chiefs to the Miami Dolphins and the excitement from both a reality and fantasy football perspective is abundant. Of course, Fantasy Alarm's lead NFL analyst Andrew Cooper has the breakdown:

This NFL trade may come as a shock to some folks but not to us - we have the receipts right here. 

The reality of the situation is that the Chiefs went around to their star players last season and asked them to restructure their contracts to help with the cap situation. Guys like Travis Kelce and Chris Jones agreed which isn’t a big deal as you actually aren’t paid less money with these restructures. What happens is they convert your base salary to signing bonus which then spreads the cap hit out over the remaining years of the deal. The player actually gets paid the cash right away.  Yet one player refused; Tyreek Hill. 

For whatever reason, he decided not to restructure so his cap hit for this season was $20 million with only $2 million in dead cap (which would have been higher had he restructured). This essentially created a situation where they needed to either extend, trade, or release him. The New York Jets were reportedly in the mix but the Chiefs opted to trade him to the Dolphins. Here is how the deal looks.
 

 

Chiefs Get:

  • 2022 1st, 2nd, and 4th
  • 2023 4th and 6th
 

Dolphins Get:

 

Tyreek Hill Gets:

  • A new contract for 4 years, $120 million with $72.2 million guaranteed
     
 

 

The craziest offseason ever gets crazier. As with all trades, lets look at the winners and losers from a fantasy football perspective. 


Fantasy Football Value Winners:

 

 

Tua Tagovailoa. Holy weapons batman. Tyreek Hill, DeVante Parker, Jaylen Waddle, and Mike Gesicki. There will be no room for making excuses this season. I guess that kind of makes Teddy Bridgewater a winner too as the seat under Tua will be hot right from the jump and he’s the next man up after signing with Miami this offseason.

 

 

The Mecole Hardman draft pick might seem redundant to some considering his similarities to Hill which makes you wonder why they made it. But, if you go back and look at the timeline, it starts to make a little more sense. Right before the NFL draft, Tyreek Hill’s son broke his arm and a voicemail came out tha cast some suspicions on the already embattled pass catcher. Hardman was then selected in the second round in what might have been “Tyreek insurance”. That situation cleared up and Hill was extended shortly after so Hardman really never found a spot. Now he’s in line to get a lot more playing time and targets. 

 

 

With Travis Kelce and Tyreek Hill there, JuJu Smith-Schuster was stepping into an already established and crowded group of pass-catchers. Now he just needs to do battle with the likes of Mecole Hardman, Corey Coleman, Cornell Powell, and Josh Gordon. Not a bad spot to be in from a fantasy perspective. 

 

 

Clyde Edwards-Helaire. Tyreek Hill commanded 159 targets last season and he usually gets somewhere between 10-20 carries as well. That’s a lot of touches. The ball needs to go somewhere and it’s more likely those touches are spread out rather than given to any one person. Perhaps now Andy Reid will lean back into the style of play-calling that saw guys like Kareem Hunt and Brian Westbrook rack up massive numbers.


Fantasy Football Value Losers: 

 

 

Patrick Mahomes. This one is pretty self-explanatory - he’s losing his most dynamic weapon in the passing game. 

 

 

It’s hard to call anyone getting that kind of money a “loser”. But, from a fantasy football perspective, Tyreek Hill going from Patrick Mahomes and the high flying Chiefs to Tua Tagovailoa and the uncertain Dolphins is almost certainly a downgrade. In fact, anywhere besides Green Bay was probably going to be a downgrade.

 

 

Some would argue that Travis Kelce now has more targets at his disposal. But let’s be real here - he was already pretty much maxed out target-wise. How many more targets can you really get than 130 to 150 as a 32-year-old tight end? Tyreek Hill took the top off defenses which helped Kelce get open underneath. Juju is more of a low aDot player and Hardman is not Tyreek Hill so the focus will be on Kelce more than ever.

 

 

All Other Dolphins Pass Catchers. Cedrick Wilson is dust now and DeVante Parker, Jaylen Waddle, and Mike Gesicki now find themselves fighting for leftovers. I would not be surprised to see one of them moved (most likely Parker). Tyreek Hill is a guy who just got paid $72 million guaranteed and had 159 targets last year. For even Jaylen Waddle to get something close to the targets he got last year, we’d need to see either a VERY highly consolidated target share among Tyreek and Waddle or this team would need to lead the league in pass attempts. I don’t see either happening.

 

 


 

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