T.Y. Hilton is still available to sign in free agency. The Kansas City Chiefs need to try and bring him in.
The Kansas City Chiefs have swung and missed on two free-agent wide receivers to this point in JuJu Smith-Schuster and Josh Reynolds, but the need for a WR2 is still very strong.
Sammy Watkins is visiting two different teams this week (and two others are said to be interested) and there’s little chance the Chiefs opt to re-sign Demarcus Robinson again.
That leaves the Chiefs with Tyreek Hill as their unquestioned WR1 with question marks surrounding Mecole Hardman and Byron Pringle’s roles with the team. Some fans might want to see Pringle have a bigger role in 2021, but the fact that the Chiefs attempted to bring in Smith-Schuster and Reynolds should tell you all you need to know about how they feel in that department.
One of the best remaining free-agent wide receivers available to sign is former Colts standout T.Y. Hilton. Sheil Kapadia of The Athletic linked Hilton to the Chiefs back when he predicted where some of the key free agents would land (must have a subscription to read the article).
T.Y. Hilton would give the Kansas City Chiefs the No. 2 wide receiver they’ve been looking to add for several years.
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After the Watkins experiment failed, the Chiefs need to not repeat their mistakes. They’ve already missed out on some of the better names at wide receiver in free agency, but this hopefully means they won’t repeat the mistake of overpaying someone again.
Hilton is coming off a season in which he caught 56 passes for 762 yards and five touchdowns through 15 regular-season games. He clearly isn’t the top of the pack as far as receivers go anymore, but that tends to happen as players age. Hilton’s also missed more games as he’s gotten older and hasn’t started all 16 games since the 2017 campaign.
If the Chiefs do end up landing Hilton’s services, they’ll be getting a very good receiver who could immediately complement Hill on the field. In his nine-year career, Hilton has totaled five seasons where he went for over 1,000 yards receiving and has never had less than four touchdowns in a season.
Being the WR2 would be a new role for Hilton, but he’d definitely get his fair share of looks, especially with teams zeroing in on Hill and Travis Kelce. There’d be a lot to like about Hilton in Kansas City and the two would make a lot of sense together.
This has been a strange free agency for wide receivers and with T.Y. Hilton still on the board, hopefully the Kansas City Chiefs can be the ones to sign him.