The roots of Tyreek Hill’s explosive play drought with the Dolphins run deep
It’s been over a year since Tyreek caught one for 30+ yards. What gives?
You’ve probably seen the stat by now. It’s been more than one calendar year since Miami Dolphins wide receiver Tyreek Hill has posted a reception of 30+ yards. The stat overlays perfectly with Miami’s offense shelling up as it did in 2024, with the Dolphins going to one of the most explosive offenses in football to one of the least, seemingly overnight.
With the calendar officially passing a year since Hill’s last explosive play, everyone has become hyper-focused on finding answers. So what really gives on Hill’s big play drought?
There is ample blame for everyone involved.
What gives with Tyreek Hill’s explosive play drought?
One of the Dolphins’ local beat reporters, Omar Kelly of the Miami Herald, asked Hill himself what’s going on this week.
“You’re trying to piss me off today,” Hill laughed.
All you can do is laugh, really. Hill still has his trademark speed. The ability to create the separation is still there. And yet here we are — the Dolphins sporting a methodical short game and Hill seeking to recapture his trademark as a receiver who can flip the field in the blink of an eye.
The search for answers will take you to every corner of the roster and the coaching staff. When Hill and the Dolphins first paired up, they had the luxury of new layers to motions and run actions that added new, stressful elements to the core principles of a Shanahan offense. Teams have adjusted, as you would expect, to those initial layers and have since prompted the Dolphins to try to funnel targets outside of their preferred window to throw the ball. The end result has been what has felt like a 13-month window of trial and error.
There’s been plenty of error, including for quarterback Tua Tagovailoa, his backups, and Hill himself. When Tagovailoa was gone from the lineup in 2024 (the first time), backup quarterback Snoop Huntley had one deep target down the left sideline that Hill appeared to lose track of in Week 7 against the Indianapolis Colts, which could have easily been received in a catch & run opportunity for a potential 50-yard score. Huntley’s ball was in play and out in front of Hill, who had a step down the sideline, but Hill flipped his eyes over his opposite shoulder to seek a ball that was laid out in front of him.
Upon Tagovailoa’s return to the lineup, a deep shot was dialed up on 3rd & 8 from Miami’s own 44-yard line the following week against the Cardinals. Hill appeared to have a step, but Tagovailoa threw the ball late as he worked through his progression and the ball hung short. And in Miami’s season-opener against the Colts last Sunday, Tagovailoa flushed left and found Hill streaking behind the defense and put a ball out along the sideline for a potential 33-yard touchdown. The ball floated a bit too long and Hill failed to get his feet in bounds a few yards outside of the goal line. Incomplete.
Timing is everything in this Miami offense. And the timing here has been nonexistent. Miami was so dangerous in 2022 and 2023 because Tagovailoa’s drops would be short out of the shotgun before pushing the ball up and down between 25-40 yards more often than not.
Hill caught 18 of his 40 targets beyond 25 air-yards downfield in his first two seasons in Miami. Between 30-40 yards, it was a 50% catch rate. Hill, since the start of 2024, has been targeted just 9 times 25 air yards or further downfield with Tua Tagovailoa on the field. He’s caught two of them — the one against Jacksonville in which he scampered for an 80-yard score. The other was a 28-yard reception against the Buffalo Bills in Week 9 on an out & up from Tagovailoa. Hill easily torched Bills corner Kaiir Elam but was pulled out of bounds after the process of the catch. A better ball would have allowed him to score, as Hill had to spin back towards the line of scrimmage to receive the ball.
The Dolphins have not been in-sync. But they also haven’t been calling these routes as often. The targets per game opportunities are down 50% in 2024 and 2025 versus 2022 & 2023. The scheme in and of itself has leaned away from a lot of the in-breaking throws between the hashes and the numbers that set Hill up for so many explosive catch and runs. Why? Some of it is surely due to defensive structure. Some of it may also have to do with the wear and tear on Miami’s receivers — both Hill and Waddle were exposed to a number of big body blows running in-breakers with anticipation. If the safety takes the right angle, it can create dangerous collisions, and Miami did make a concentrated effort to get the snap share up for both Waddle and Hill in 2024 versus 2023. Waddle’s snap usage was up from 68 percent of snaps in 2023 to 78 percent of snaps in 2024. Hill played more than 200 additional snaps in 2024 than he did the previous season.
Even when Hill has caught passes with an opportunity to try to split defenders and get loose, there’s been times where he’s geared down and tried to do extra in tight spaces instead of hitting a seam. Hill’s as fast as anyone in the league but jittering in place or giving up yardage to try to get a bigger play appeared on the film on more than one occasion in 2024.
Sprinkle in a surprising dip in shots off of play action, too. Hill has just seven targets on of more than 20 air-yards on play action from Tagovailoa since the start of 2024. They tried to dial one up for Hill on the second possession against the Colts in Week 1 but running back De’Von Achane completely missed his scan protection and the nickel defender came running free into the backfield, stripping Tagovailoa of the football for Miami’s second turnover in as many possessions to start the year.
Hill had 33 such targets from Tagovailoa in 2022 and 2023 combined and caught 55% of them.
So what gives? A little bit of everything. The timing with Tagovailoa has been irregular. The Dolphins’ protection schemes have failed them when they’ve tried it. Tagovailoa has hung a few passes just a little too long, forcing the play to run out of grass along the sideline. Hill has lost track of the ball or failed to make a play on a handful of occasions. And when he has caught it, he appeared in 2024 at times to try to do too much with it. The Dolphins will point to the two-high safety shells they’ve gotten as a deterrent before the snap, too — automatically prompting their progressions to take open space underneath instead.
It will come down to Hill winning at the catch point or Tagovailoa finding the right balance of extending a play to find a breakthrough. They nearly had one, and a 33-yard score, in Indianapolis. Instead, the Tyreek Hill explosive play watch continues for another week.
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