It’s been over a week since the Kansas City Chiefs traded Tyreek Hill to the Miami Dolphins and we now have the first comments from star QB Patrick Mahomes.
Speaking with Sports Illustrated’s Albert Breer on Wednesday, Mahomes revealed that the situation didn’t exactly catch him by surprise. The Chiefs’ front office kept him apprised of everything going on, including the point when Hill was given permission to seek a trade. What most surprised Mahomes is that things got to that point.
“It more surprised me whenever it got to the point where we were really considering trading him,” Mahomes told Breer. “They kept me updated the entire time; I knew the extension talks were going on. And then I knew when he got the permission to seek to get traded. But I mean, still, I played my entire career with Tyreek, so definitely, there was a little bit of shock when he got traded.
“At the same time, they kept me involved the entire process, and I know that we made a tremendous effort to try to keep him in Kansas City. Tyreek, he’s such a tremendous player, he got what he deserved. I’m happy for him. And he’s at a place where he has a home and he’s closer to family and stuff. So I’m very happy for him. We had to move forward.”
And Mahomes has moved forward rather quickly.
“We had to move on and try to get as much as we could for him and try to build that receiving room again,” Mahomes said. “And do it to where we have the ability to go out there and compete every single week, which I trust Brett Veach and Coach [Andy] Reid will do.”
Mahomes understood that getting the most draft capital and cap space they could out of the Hill trade would help the team out moving forward. He trusts that Brett Veach and Andy Reid will have the team competing at a high level again even without Hill, but he recognizes that certain things will be different this year.
“This is definitely going to be a transition year where we try to figure out how we’re going to have success with this team, it’s gonna be different than the teams that we’ve had,” Mahomes said.
Outside of Mecole Hardman and Josh Gordon, no wide receiver currently on the roster has caught a regular-season pass from Mahomes. Not only did Mahomes lose Hill this offseason, but he also lost Demarcus Robinson and Byron Pringle. Losing three of his top pass-catchers doesn’t have him phased, though. In fact, he told Breer that he feels the newly rebuilt offensive line a season ago was probably a more difficult transition.
“I think it changed this last year more than I think it will change this year,” Mahomes said. “This last year when we brought in all those different offensive linemen that, I mean, obviously they’re all super talented and make us have one of the best offensive lines in the league. But I had to become more of a leader, because before that I had a lot of guys that had been there for a long time and that had done it and were great players, so I could kind of lean on them for information.
“I could lean on them when we’re out there in the huddle, guys that have all seen every single look. So when I had all these offensive linemen come in this last year, I knew I had to set an example of how we do things. Lucky enough for me, we had guys that love football. You get Creed Humphrey, Trey Smith, Orlando Brown, Joe Thuney, all those guys, they love football. … So I think I’ll continue to evolve, I’ll continue to have to be that example, this year for the receiving room.”
The Chiefs have already begun to add to the receiver room, signing JuJu Smith-Schuster, Marquez Valdes-Scantling and Corey Coleman in free agency. They’ll continue to build the group up through the 2022 NFL draft too.
With the new additions to the receiver room, Mahomes is already planning to throw and work with his teammates, with many set to join him for training in Texas so they can get a jumpstart on the 2022 NFL season. He already has former 2021 fifth-round pick Cornell Powell working with him and his trainer, Bobby Stroupe.
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— Bobby Stroupe (@bobbystroupe) March 31, 2022
He expects more of his teammates, both new and old, to join him shortly.
“I actually have a lot of guys coming at the end of this week and we’re going to continue the rest of the offseason and OTAs,” Mahomes said. “We will be together and working. We have a whole new receiving room, so I’m gonna get these guys together as much as possible just to build those relationships, as much as me getting to work with them. So I think by the time we get to the season, we’ll have a tight-knit group with a lot of great playmakers.”