Kansas City Chiefs played just fine without Tyreek Hill in week two
The Kansas City Chiefs played in their first game without Tyreek Hill as their WR1 since his rookie year and they fared just fine without him.
When Tyreek Hill missed most of the Kansas City Chiefs‘ season opener in Jacksonville, fans started to wonder if the offense could still function the same without him. That question was answered on Sunday against the Raiders, at least for the time being.
Now look – It’s just one game and the Chiefs offense could still end up sputtering without Hill, but in their first game without him, they looked like the same offense we’ve seen since the start of last year.
That’s largely in part because of the whole next man up mentality. Sammy Watkins was already having a great game in week one before Hill went down and went on to have nearly 200 yards receiving and three touchdowns.
Week two saw Watkins getting a lot more attention from the Raiders defense and that paved the way for Demarcus Robinson to have a great game. Robinson finally showed Chiefs Kingdom what he could do when asked to be the WR2 and the end result was pretty great. He had six catches for 172 yards and two touchdowns.
Rookie Mecole Hardman got in on the action too this weekend, grabbing four balls for 61 yards and a score. Were it not for a penalty that canceled out the touchdown, Hardman would have had two touchdowns and over 100 yards on the day. Not too shabby.
The wide receivers have been so good without Hill that fans have forgotten to mention Travis Kelce as much. Kelce had a tremendous game in Oakland, catching the ball seven times for 107 yards and a score. When fans forget to mention the All-Pro tight end even with Tyreek Hill out, that’s when you know you’re in good hands.
It’s unfortunate that the Chiefs opted to extend Hill so early because we’re seeing already that the offense doesn’t necessarily need him to make this offense so explosive. Retaining Hill was more or less about making sure another team didn’t scoop him up and use him against the Chiefs moving forward and that’s not a bad strategy either.
Again – We’re only two weeks removed from Hill’s injury and this offense is absolutely better with him in the lineup, but when it comes down to it, the wide receivers are holding their own without him and that’s a huge help for this team in these early season games.