Why it’s a make-or-break year for Mecole Hardman and how he can cash in for KC Chiefs
A parade of veteran Chiefs players arrived at Scanlon Hall on the Missouri Western State campus Monday, the official report day for training camp, and for the first time since Patrick Mahomes entered the NFL, his familiar top weapon was not among them.
Tyreek Hill is gone, now a Miami Dolphin, fortunate enough to finally play alongside an accurate passer there. In his absence here, wide receivers JuJu Smith-Schuster, Marquez Valdes-Scantling and Skyy Moore are among those making their first trip to St. Joseph, where they will call home for the next month.
It’s the story of the offseason in Kansas City, but it’s one that also continues to percolate in national conversation because, frankly, Hill seems to want to preserve that conversation for as long as absolutely possible.
But as the Chiefs embark on the 2022 season with the onset of training camp Wednesday, there’s another receiver who presents an intriguing story line — not the guy who’s now in South Beach, and not any of those acquired to replace him.
A player with whom we’re already plenty familiar.
Mecole Hardman.
This has all the makings of a make-or-break season for a player entering the final year of his rookie contract. There’s no wideout on the Chiefs roster in position to benefit more from the collective changes — for reasons beyond Hill’s departure— yet without the guarantee that will actually occur. How much will this new arrangement truly affect him? Much of that is going to be up to him — not just dependent on who else is in the locker room.
But make no mistake: Both matter.
It’s no secret the Chiefs saw almost exclusively deep shell defenses a year ago, with Hill primarily the responsible party for it. Secondaries wanted to account for his top-flight speed, and what better way to subtract it than have defenders waiting deep in the defensive backfield? When opponents implemented those Cover-2, Cover-3 or Cover-4 shells, it didn’t simply negate Hill as a deep threat — it neutralized all of the Chiefs’ deep passing game.
Mahomes had his worst year throwing the deep ball, and he basically spent a season reminding himself to check the ball down. The safeties occupied the back-end residence, no matter which Chiefs receiver might come knocking on the door, Hardman included.
That didn’t prevent Hardman from trying go routes — that was still his most commonly run route last year, and by a decent margin — but it did prevent the success he had running them. In his rookie season in 2019, for example, Hardman had six receiving touchdowns — they went for 83 yards, 63, 48, 42, 30 and 21. The distance of his longest touchdown in 2021? All of 8 yards.
Eight. Yards.
Hill’s absence alone might not pull defenses out of their shell, but it could certainly help. And a committee approach at wide receiver could add the necessary supplement — the more receivers for which a defense must account, the fewer it will feel confident about defending in soft zones on underneath routes.
If the Chiefs can pick out holes in the shell defenses, and an offseason of scheme work usually tilts the favor in Andy Reid’s corner, they’ll see more man-to-man coverage. Hardman’s speed is a bigger asset against man-to-man than a zone look, the latter of which requires the quarterback and wide receiver to be on the same page. If you’ve watched more than a handful of Chiefs games, you’ll know that’s not always been the case with Mahomes and Hardman.
Which is one way he plays his own role in this. There’s more to that, though. You know, Hill had the same strength removed from his game a year ago, and he broke the franchise record with 111 catches. His yards-per-catch dwindled. His touchdowns dropped from a year earlier. But he found another way to impact the game. At one point, he said he was tired of running so many 10-yard outs, but, hey, if that was his way to make an imprint, he did it. A no-excuses sort of season.
That same opportunity doesn’t escape Hardman, even if comparing the two players is oversimplification based on size and speed. For Hardman to make a similar adjustment — or the re-adjustment to what defenses provide — he has to become better at tracking the ball in the air and become a more crisp route runner, acknowledgments he made Monday in St. Joseph ahead of check-in. We’ve also heard him say that in the past.
If not now, when?
“I think I’m ready,” he said Monday, adding, “I mean, I think it’s all general improvement — honestly just talking routes, catching better, recognizing defenses better, watching a little bit more film.”
The words are there.
The opportunity certainly is.
The results? We’ll see.
This story was originally published July 26, 2022 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Why it’s a make-or-break year for Mecole Hardman and how he can cash in for KC Chiefs."