NFL Splits Tool: What Did Tyreek’s Departure Mean?

With most of the significant offseason movements in the rear-view mirror, it’s time to look forward to the upcoming league year and start preparing for our 2023 fantasy football drafts. In this series, I’ll be using the FTN Fantasy Splits Tool to look at how changes in environment and situations have impacted teams and players in the past. The Splits Tool allows you to experiment with a wide variety of inputs such as active/inactive players, spreads, locations, and much more to help you gain a better understanding of the cause and effect of different scenarios. Sign up for an FTN Fantasy subscription for full access to the tool which will continue to update throughout the season. 

Entering 2022, there were a lot of question marks surrounding the Chiefs offense and how they would function without Tyreek Hill. Hill was traded to Miami earlier in the offseason, returning six future draft picks after failing to reach an agreement on a new contract. Hill signed a four-year extension with the Dolphins, becoming the highest-paid wide receiver in the league. Hill paid off the hefty cost of acquisition immediately in his first season, catching a career-high 119 passes for 1,710 receiving yards, trailing only the offensive player of the year, Justin Jefferson, in both categories. Despite losing one of the best wide receivers in the NFL, the Chiefs didn’t lose a beat, finishing as the No. 1 offense in 2022, scoring 29.2 points per game and the only team to average over 400 yards of offense (413.6). Patrick Mahomes led the NFL in passing yards and touchdowns leaning on his All-Pro tight end, Travis Kelce, who finished top-10 in receiving yards and second in receiving touchdowns. In this article I’m going to use the Splits Tool to look at how the duo has fared in games without Tyreek Hill, dating back to 2018, Mahomes’ first season as a starter. Aside from this past season, Hill has missed four games during that stretch including the playoffs. 

Patrick Mahomes 

Patrick Mahomes was nothing short of spectacular last season, winning the MVP of the league and Super Bowl for the second time in five seasons, becoming the first player to win both awards in the year since Kurt Warner in 1999. He set a career-high and franchise record in passing yards (5,250), accounting for the most offensive yards by any player in NFL history (5,608). Although he led the NFL with 41 passing touchdowns in the 2022 regular season, he’s taken a slight hit in that department in games without Tyreek Hill, averaging 0.15 fewer passing scores per game since his first season as the starter. The difference is marginal, but in 24 games without Hill since 2018, Mahomes receives an uptick in pass attempts (+0.64) and completions (+0.71), throwing for nearly 10 more yards per game (+9.57). He also turns the ball over less, throwing 0.12 fewer interceptions without Hill in the lineup. 

Travis Kelce 

Travis Kelce was the primary beneficiary of Tyreek Hill’s departure, setting a career-high in targets (152), receptions (110) and touchdowns (12) last season, posting 1,300-plus receiving yards for the third time in his career. It was the seventh time Kelce surpassed 1,000 receiving yards, logging 1,100-plus receiving yards in all five seasons since Patrick Mahomes took over as the starter in 2018. During that span, Kelce has played 24 games without Tyreek Hill and has seen a decrease by one-tenth of a target per game but an increase in receptions (+0.25). Kelce also averages 1.22 fewer receiving yards when Hill is missing but has found the endzone more frequently, scoring 0.25 times more per game. Although he will be turning 34 this upcoming season, Kelce is in line for another monster year, playing with the best quarterback in the NFL, and on a Chiefs team that has 152 vacated targets (25.7% vacated target share) up for grabs from the previous season.