Tyreek Hill broke into the podcasting business like a pro earlier this month, dropping a hot take that went viral with over one million views.
The comment that garnered the attention was Hill claiming his new Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa is a more accurate passer than his former Kansas City Chiefs teammate Patrick Mahomes. But during his second podcast episode, Hill said the hot take didn’t just go viral, it caused him to receive death threats from listeners.
“Every social media account I owned, I got death threats on. Which is ridiculous,” Hill said. “I just feel like a lot of people overreacted for no reason…They really didn’t see what I said. A lot of people are just acting off emotion.”
Ridiculous is an understatement. Hill didn’t offer any details or specifics surrounding the threats, but considering the toxicity of social media and the idiocy of some rabid sports fans, it’s not all that surprising, unfortunately.
Instead of faulting the cesspool that Twitter can be at times, Hill and his co-host, attorney Julius Collins placed blame on the media for the wild uproar that the Mahomes-Tua comparison caused.
“That’s the problem that the media and the journalists have to deal with,” Collins said. “A lot of them have gotten to the point where they don’t care about reporting the truth. They abandoned the truth because they didn’t have the answer to it.”
“That’s how they make their money, man! That’s how you make your money,” Hill added. “That’s how you stay relevant in the business because people wanna see the bad stories, people wanna see stuff like that.”
Collins and Hill were essentially saying the media just ran with “snippets” and not the full context of their conversation. But most of the headlines accurately portrayed Hill’s claim that Tua is more accurate than Mahomes. If the headlines claimed Hill said Tua was an all-around better quarterback than Mahomes, then the media blame might be more justified.
“Obviously, like I’m going to go with one-five as the strongest arm. But as far as accuracy-wise, I’m going with Tua all day,” Hill said in his first podcast episode. It wasn’t followed with an “I’m kidding,” Hill portrayed it as his honest opinion.
In his second episode, where Hill and Collins called out the media for running with “snippets,” the speedy wide receiver praised Mahomes and claimed he’s just trying to show support for his new quarterback.
“We all know Patrick Mahomes is great,” Hill said. “We know that. We know that. But right now, I’m going into a new season with a new quarterback who’s trying to head in the same direction as Patrick and do great things and lead this team to a Super Bowl championship who’s also great, in my opinion. He just doesn’t have the accolades of yet. I believe in him.”
So does he actually believe Tua is the more accurate quarterback or is he just trying to boost his new teammate’s confidence? Regardless, Hill gave an opinion, and others in the media highlighted his hot take. Whether Hill believes it or not, only he knows, but the media didn’t mischaracterize or misquote the fact that he picked Tua’s accuracy over Mahomes.
