‘We Can’t Help Ourselves:’ NFL Insiders Expect Tyreek Hill to Play Again

Tyreek Hill, pictured in a January media session, was suspended by the Chiefs on Thursday.Charlie Riedel/Associated Press

Across the league, in NFL front offices, in draft rooms, in coaches’ offices, people have been listening to the tape of Chiefs wide receiver Tyreek Hill that was released by KCTV5 on Thursday. Chiefs officials have reacted—suspending Hill—and so have many others.

One head coach told B/R that Hill should never play in the NFL again. Other coaches and team employees put the blame for what’s happened squarely on the Chiefs, and specifically on coach Andy Reid, for creating a culture in which this type of behavior is tolerated.

But the resounding sentiment from a group of six people that included team officials and a head coach was that while the Chiefs will eventually release Hill because of the tape, Hill will one day play in the NFL again.

“We still don’t care about domestic violence as a league,” one AFC team executive said.

“He’ll be playing next year,” one NFC head coach said, “because we can’t help ourselves.”

And by “we,” he meant the NFL in its entirety.

Team officials from around the league expect the Chiefs to cut Hill, and they think the league will follow with some sort of extensive punishment. But that’s not the story.

The story is one everyone can predict. The chances are Hill, despite the viciousness expressed on the tape and his 2015 conviction for domestic violence against his now wife, Crystal Espinal, will play again in the NFL.

What’s clear is the league still has a domestic violence problem. This is a fact. It cannot be denied.

The problem goes back decades and is epitomized by the league’s mishandling of the Ray Rice case in 2014. Hill is just another chapter in an ugly story.

The reason the NFL struggles to deal cleanly with domestic violence is that the overriding factor in the process is talent, not decency.

In December 2014, Espinal, who was eight weeks pregnant, told police Hill had choked her and punched her in the face and stomach during an argument. In August 2015, Hill pleaded guilty to domestic abuse by strangulation.

The Chiefs still drafted Hill in the fifth round in 2016. This is when the Chiefs, and the entire NFL, should have taken a stand. There are certain crimes after which a player shouldn’t get a second chance, and punching a pregnant woman in the stomach is one of them.

By drafting Hill, the Chiefs sent him a message: Your talent is the determining factor.

Hill received that message loud and clear. On Thursday night, the Kansas City station KCTV5 aired a tape of Hill threatening Espinal and Espinal saying their three-year-old son feared him.

The most pertinent part of the tape is that you hear the real Tyreek Hill. Not the PR Tyreek Hill. Not the Tyreek Hill the Chiefs wanted you to see. Not the Tyreek Hill he wanted you to see. You hear the Hill who clearly never learned from past mistakes and possibly abused his child the way he once did Espinal.

Kansas City has become the epicenter of this issue. Former Chiefs running back Kareem Hunt was released in November after a video emerged of Hunt assaulting a woman. There were questions about what the Chiefs and the NFL knew and when they knew it (this NPR article by Jacob Pinter offers a good breakdown). Hunt has since been signed by the Cleveland Browns and suspended eight games by the league.

The Chiefs also just signed defensive lineman Frank Clark to a five-year deal worth approximately $104 million. In November 2014, Clark was arrested on domestic violence and assault charges and kicked off the University of Michigan team. The charges later were reduced to disorderly conduct in a plea deal.

In drafting Hill, Kansas City picked a player with a highly disturbing past and rolled the dice he wouldn’t be a problem. It has bit the team in the backside.

You will hear a lot of dismay and outrage from the Chiefs and the NFL over that ugly tape. You will hear how domestic violence isn’t tolerated. There will be wagging of fingers and shaking of heads.

Yet all that will be just posturing. The truth, the hard truth, is that talent still trumps everything. Even domestic violence. Maybe even child abuse.

Everything.