Tyreek Hill is on a torrid pace to begin the 2023 season. And it's not out of the question that the Cheetah could be racing his way toward an NFL record.
Hill finds himself leading the NFL in receiving yards through 13 weeks, and there's a long gap between him and the rest of the field.
With Hill's outstanding start to the season, attention quickly turns to whether he will set the single-season receiving yards record. Justin Jefferson gave it a run last year en route to winning NFL Offensive Player of the Year, but he ultimately came up short. But Hill is ahead of Jefferson's pace, and, to this point, ahead of Calvin Johnson's record pace in 2012.
Hill will ultimately have an advantage over Johnson: that 17th game. Johnson played in the maximum 16 games to set the record with 1,964 receiving yards. If Hill plays in every Dolphins' 2023 game, he will wind up reaching 17 games total.
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What yardage pace is Hill on so far in 2023? Here's what you need to know.
Tyreek Hill stats 2023
Stats: 93 catches, 127 targets, 1,481 receiving yards, 12 touchdown receptions
Through the first 12 games of the season, Hill is running away with the receiving yards lead. He had 1,481 yards on 93 catches, which would be third all time through the first 12 games of a season behind Charley Hennigan's 1,623 yards in 1961 and Elroy Hirsch's 1,495 yards in 1951.
But when looking at these numbers, it's always important to remember that things can change over the course of the season. Last year, Hill had a similarly hot start to the campaign. Through eight games, he led the NFL with 961 receiving yards, and was leading the NFL by nearly 100 yards. But quarterback Tua Tagovailoa got hurt, and Hill slowly lost the receiving yard edge to Jefferson, coming up with 1,710 to Jefferson's 1,809.
Still, this year's outstanding start is his best to date. Through his first eight games in 2023, he had 1,014 receiving yards. Last year's 961 receiving yards through eight games are now the second-most yards he's had through the first eight games of a season. Before that, he had 735 in 2021 and 705 in 2018.
This puts Hill slightly ahead of Johnson's first 13 weeks. Johnson had 1,428 receiving yards through his first 12 games. However, he exploded over the final four, racking up 536 yards, averaging 134 yards per game.
Tyreek Hill yards pace
The simplest way to look at Hill's pace is to take his average yards per game and multiply it by 17. As things stand, he's on pace for 2,098 receiving yards by the end of the year. That would break Johnson's record by 134 yards.
However, that would require maintaining this exact pace that he's on. Players get off to hot starts, but it wouldn't take much for him to be shaken off that pace and fall off track. And the more tape there is for how he's used, the more likely teams will be to try and take him away in the passing game.
Sporting News has designed a model that takes his historic paces, evaluating his week-by-week performances, and calculates his potential yardage totals. The model simulates the remainder of his 2023 season 20,000 times and records each season's total, developing odds that he reaches certain yardage totals.
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Here's how the model is currently shaping up, following Miami's Week 13 game against the Commanders:
The model says most likely, Hill will wind up finishing with a yardage total in the 1,900s. Of the 20,000 simulations, 28.4 percent came between 1,900 and 1,999 yards. The mode (most frequent) exact total was 1,984, the median (exact middle) was 1,929 and the average was 1,933.
That's not to say he's not going to surpass Johnson. The model gives him a 39.8 percent chance of passing Johnson's record. Of the simulations conducted, the highest result calculated was 2,428 receiving yards, which would be a runaway season for Hill.
Given the yardage for Hill, one would think he would be more likely to set the record. But there's a reason Johnson's record has stood this long: it's hard to maintain this type of production pace.
Still, Hill seems to be the best bet in years to do it. He's already only 483 yards short of tying Johnson's record, which would mean averaging 96.6 yards per game. Hill averaged 100.6 yards per game in 2022 and is on a 120.4 yards per game pace this year, but prior to arriving in Miami, he had never averaged more than 92.4 yards per game.
