Former NFL wide receiver Brian Finneran sat down in The Shadow League’s “Locker Room” to weigh in on NFL Wild Card weekend and other NFL topics with former fullback Ovie Phillip Mughelli.
Tyreek Hill Walks Out On Team In Fourth Quarter Of Final Game
With Wild Card weekend jumping off on Saturday, one of the league’s star players, WR Tyreek Hill, won’t be participating with his Miami Dolphins team, who fell a game short of the playoffs after battling injuries at key positions.
The flamboyant and speedy receiver was visibly upset after the season finale, an unceremonious 32-20 loss to the lowly Jets that dropped the Dolphins to 8-9 and out of the playoffs. He left the field early and triggered some controversy when he indicated that he was ready to find another football home.
“This is my first time I haven’t been in the playoffs,” Hill said. “I mean for me, like I said man, I just gotta do what’s best for me and my family, dawg. If that’s here, or wherever the case may be, man, I’m going to open the door for myself, dawg.”
Mughelli said Tyreek is having second thoughts about the business decisions he made leaving a Kansas City Chiefs dynasty for the money in Miami.
“It seems like Tyreek was in the perfect spot to win games, but he wanted the money and now he’s realizing that everything that glitters ain’t gold,” Mughelli, a nine-year NFL veteran and 2010 Pro Bowl player told “The Locker Room.”
Former NFL Fullback Ovi Mughelli Can Relate To Tyreek Hill
The former two-time second-team All-Pro left Baltimore in 2006 because several teams, including the New York Giants, Tampa Bay Bucs and Atlanta Falcons were throwing big bags for his services.
Mughelli says he was making $800K his last year with the Ravens, and when Atlanta offered him a million more per year than the Bucs and significantly more than the New York Giants, he went to Atlanta. So instead of going to the Giants with Eli Manning — a place that Mughelli says he could have won a Super Bowl — he took the money to provide for his family.
Similar to Tyreek Hill, who left Patrick Mahomes’ chiefs and a dynasty in the making to take the money in Miami, Mughelli entered Atlanta in 2007, just as Mike Vick was embroiled in the dogfighting scandal that sent him to prison.
“The Falcons wound up winning just three games,” Mughelli recalls. “I was like, what the hell did I just do? But the end of the day I knew it was the best thing for my family”
So Mughelli understood that he traded winning for the money and the disastrous year in Atlanta was part of the cost. He also understands Reek’s pain but says it doesn’t absolve him.
“We’ve seen a lot of divas just not play to the level they should when given the opportunity. I didn’t think Tyreek would be one of them because he’s a player’s player,” said the “Locker Room” host. “He was showing things that was disappointing for someone who loves the game.”
Brian Finneran Says Tyreek Hill Needs A Reality Check
“He already did what everyone should do, which is take care of his family and he’s got a bunch of families, I tell you that,” Finneran jokes, referencing the numerous kids that Reek has, somewhere between eight and 10, depending on who you ask.
Finneran continued: “He just re-upped last offseason, three years and $90 million. … I don’t know what he wants. He left the best situation in football, and he’s already made generational type money and he’s going to bitch and complain about being on that team this year, just missing the playoffs by one game due to some injuries?”
Finneran was infuriated by Reek leaving his team late in the last game of the season because he was mad that they wouldn’t make the playoffs. It’s childish behavior, which Finneran also adds isn’t common in the NFL. Diva receivers such as Antonio Brown and Tyreek Hill, who bring attention to themselves at times when the team needs to unify, are not the norm, he says.
“So he’s got to suck it up,” Finneran said of Hill going forward. “He needs to be chastised. He quit on that team in the fourth quarter man.”
Added Finneran, who won the NFL’s Walter Payton Award in 1997, Tyreek Hill “got frustrated, emotional. He realized in the middle of that game in the fourth quarter that his team was out of it (the playoffs) because somebody else won and reacted in a bad way. Even in the postgame presser he said, ‘I’m out, man, I don’t want to be here anymore,’ so that’s a bad look by Tyreek. I guess he met with the head coach and cleared the air, I don’t see him going anywhere.”
Super Agent Drew Rosenhaus Says Tyreek Hill Played Season With Broken Wrist
Hill’s agent Drew Rosenhaus revealed that the star receiver broke his wrist in a joint practice against the Washington Commanders during the preseason and apparently gutted through the injury all season.
“This hampered him all year long. He deserves a lot of credit. Tyreek is very passionate,” Rosenhaus gushed.
Hill played all 17 games, finishing the season with 959 yards after amassing 1,799 in 2023.
“We have top doctors saying to Tyreek, ‘You need to get this operated on. You’re going to miss the season,'” Rosenhaus said. “Tyreek says to me and the Dolphins: ‘I’m not going to miss the season. I’m going to play. I want to be here for my team.’ The doctors say, ‘It’s going to be painful. It could impact your entire career.”
So the fact that Hill sacrificed himself to get to the playoffs and fell short, while enduring a season of unforeseen setbacks, including his arrest outside of the stadium for speeding and then mixing it up with police, came to a boiling point, as GM Chris Grier noted in the season wrap-up new conference.
“Him playing through his injury just kind of bubbled to a point,” said Grier, who labeled his talk with Hill “productive” and added that Hill did not request a trade.
Head coach Mike McDaniel also said he met with Hill for about an hour.
“I was very direct with him,” McDaniel said. “He was very honest, and it was on great terms that we were discussing. Discussed multiple things including without wavering that it’s not acceptable to leave a game and won’t be tolerated in the future, and he embraced accountability. I wouldn’t say there’s anything necessarily to fix as much as we had to clear the air in a rough and tumultuous situation.”
Tyreek Hill stays true to his diva receiver ways. It’s not a stretch to say he’s missing Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reid these days.
