Tyreek Hill – December 19, 2024
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Thursday, December 19, 2024
WR Tyreek Hill
(The tweet, “Time for me to go coach…”) – “Y’all know what’s crazy? I just be looking at stuff and then I tweet. Like no grammar – I be needing some grammar corrections and everything else. But what I meant was, like when I say ‘it’s time for me to go coach’ meaning that when you see guys like Teddy Bridgewater, when you see guys like Michael Vick getting these head coaching jobs; it’s like bro, I want to be a coach also when I’m done playing. So that’s all I meant by it. I ain’t meant by like ‘I want to get traded’ or ‘I want to leave Miami.’ Like I’m in a great situation here, I love the guys here. I love this organization. They obviously changed me and my family’s life forever, so I’m in a great spot. I’m happy. I wish we were playing better ball, but at the end of the day, I feel like when I tweet something, it’s not always about football. It’s about seeing these other guys succeed in other areas like Deion Sanders and stuff like that. I was just shooting my shot really at Michael Vick, like hey, it’s time for me to go coach with Vick maybe, you know what I’m saying?”
(You going to take a pay cut to go to Norfolk State?) – “I wouldn’t mind. Like shoot, I feel like I set myself up. Like me and my family have set ourselves up well enough, taking care of our money, done a great job with it that whatever happens, happens.”
(So you’re surprised at how it blew up?) – “I’m really surprised. Like I had my grandmother call me. I’m like, ‘you’re not even on Twitter.’ Like how are you getting this information? She’s like ‘all these people are sending it to me.’ And I’m like, ‘bro, you have nothing to worry about.’ I’m happy, everybody’s happy. We just had our baby girl.”
(Speaking on behalf of a contingent of fans, we know that you’re a troll. You have fun with it. You’re an expert troll. Some fans are upset because they just lost – you just lost 20-12 to Houston. They’re hurting and you’re still trolling and so people are saying, “shouldn’t there be a limit to the trolling?”) – “I get it, I get it. I get it. I want to win. We want to win just as bad as everybody else. We’re out here busting our tail each and every day like just to get over the hump. At the end of the day, I’m going to be me. I’m going to have fun, I’m going to laugh, I’m going to have a good time. That’s just my personality because I feel like I can’t dwell or be mad because at the end of the day I’ve got to go home to my wife and my daughter, so I’ve got to be able to switch hats. So when I’m at home, I’m in a good mood. I’m around my family. But obviously we all wish things were different. We should’ve won games; we should’ve did this.”
(Do you feel any sympathy for the fans who think “I’m hurt right now”?) – “Obviously, obviously you do, man. Like you think about all that. Like right now is the time when you think about all that, like when the season isn’t going your way. It’s easy for guys to be able to sit out and just say they don’t want to play or do this or that, but you’ve got to think about all the people who literally invest their time, invest their money into us, paying our bills at the end of the day. So it kind of sucks for the fans, I’m really hoping we can continue to fight on as a team, continue to build what we’ve built in the previous years. I think we can build off the two great seasons that we had. Like we made it to the playoffs – that’s great. It’s hard to make it to the playoffs in the NFL. People won’t tell you that, but it is. So at the end of the day, it sucks. As a fan, it sucks because I’ve been there. I was a kid once. I was a fan of the Minnesota Vikings. We never made it to the playoffs; you know what I’m saying? Never won a playoff game so it sucked.”
(Did you consider shutting it down now that the playoffs are all but eliminated?) – “No, I never shut it down. I never shut it down. You only get so many opportunities to play this game and I feel like I’ve got to be able to take advantage of every opportunity that I get because football is not for long and you never know how situations unfold at the end of the year, so I want to be able to play with all of these guys on this team one last time so we can try to put together a special run here toward the end of the year.”
(Can you think of any plays without naming specifically where the wrist injury has hurt your ability to do things you like to do this year? Has that happened much in games?) – “Not for real. I’m the type of dude, I don’t make excuses because I’m on the field at the end of the day. I’ve got to make plays. Obviously, you know it’s going to hurt, but still got to make plays. I can’t sit up here and say, ‘oh, X, Y, Z. X, Y, Z. My wrist this play…’ That would be – I don’t want to say the word – but that would be soft to me, to sit up here and make excuses with you guys. I feel like at the end of the day I’m a leader, I’m a man, and if I’m out there on the field, I’m 100%. I’m ready. I’m locked in, I’m ready to play.”
(What would you say to people who are watching the season unfold and point to saying your play is declining?) – “If it’s declining, then it is what it is. A lot of people have their opinions. I’m here to do my job. If that’s to not touch the ball, or touch the ball, I’m here for my teammates. I’m here just to be the best version of myself. I’m comfortable with that, my teammates know who I am. I’m going to continue to bust my tail every day at practice because that’s just my mindset. I’ve always been an underdog. Fifth-round draft pick, people said I wasn’t this, people said I wasn’t that. Then when I became, then it was like, ‘Oh, he can be,’ but now it’s ‘I’m declining.’ People are always going to have something to say whether you’re doing good or bad. I’m just grateful to be in the limelight right now.”
(Where do you stand with the wrist in terms of after the season? Is it likely you’ll have surgery?) – “I don’t know yet. I don’t know. It’s a lot to unpack right now. I just know right now in my head I’m not doing it. But if I continue to have conversations and continue to educate myself on it, then obviously I may end up doing it. But right now I’m going to say no because that’s something I don’t want to do.”
(With this offense, when you were heavily targeted, you were sixth and No. 1 offensively. Not heavily targeted, now y’all are 20th. I know a lot of factors go into it like the run game, but what do you say to people to explain what’s happened to this offense?) – “To me, I think it’s a lot of things. When you truly understand football and you watch the Miami Dolphins this year from previous years, it’s all about execution, it’s all about pre-snap operations, it’s all about not shooting yourself in the foot. I feel like a lot of drives that we’ve had, big plays that we’ve had, they’ve been called back or even when we’re starting a drive, we get a false start, or we get a holding flag, stuff like that. It’s small things that equate to bigger things down the stretch which puts us in a third-and-14 which is not manageable. That’s hard. We got some of the best playmakers on this team. We got the most accurate quarterback in the NFL, but that’s hard. To try to get a third-and-14 or third-and-long, that’s hard. We’re not putting ourselves in manageable situations, putting us in like second-and-3 so that way we can be able to capitalize and get to third-and-1 and stuff like that. It’s a lot of things we are not doing. We’re not doing a lot of the smaller things, and I feel like we just got to get better at that. We got to be able to chase the ball. You never know, guys may fumble. If you don’t got the ball, everybody get to the ball. Everybody block for the guy who’s – if you’re not carrying the ball, go block somebody. Go put a body on somebody. We just got to do those small things, get back to doing those things. And I feel like this year, we’ve kind of like fell off doing that as a team, including myself, myself, myself. Once we get back to doing that, we’ll be alright.”
(On accountability, Head Coach Mike McDaniel praised you and QB Tua Tagovailoa for taking responsibility for Sunday. What does that process look like? Is it just, “My bad,” or how does that look? Second one, Soul Runner, I know you guys are having a pop-up shop in Aventura on Saturday. Can you talk to me about why that is important to you?) – “First thing is first, about the accountability part; I feel like at the end of the day, it comes down to just manning up. A lot of people aren’t man enough to say, ‘Hey, I was in the wrong spot,’ or ‘I thought you were here and there.’ Me being me, I’m all about trying to get better. I’m all about trying to make this team better. I know the only way that that can happen is if both of us are able to express that, ‘I was in the wrong spot, Tua.’ Sunday, I was in the wrong spot. He thought I was going to be in a spot, I wasn’t in the spot. Moving forward we watch film, we break it down, we talk about the coverage – exactly what he’s seeing and then I tell him what I’m seeing. Then we kind of argue back and forth, and then we meet in a middle point which is he probably was right. That’s how we really talk about it. On the pop-up, me and my wife are doing a Soul Runner store again. This time it’s going to be featuring Korean ice cream, so you guys come try it out. I’ll give you guys some free samples I guess since I like y’all. So we’re doing my clothing brand featuring Korean ice cream. This Saturday, it’s going to be open around 1:30 (p.m.), so make sure you guys pull up. Merch, clothing, and we’re also doing a toy giveaway with some kids to pop everything off. It’s kind of a soft launch.”
(Where is it at?) – “Aventura Mall – the store is right beside Bloomingdales. We’re also having an NCAA tournament inside.”
