The cheetah is able to go from zero to 60 mph in 3 seconds. Cheetahs can reach speeds up to 60 to 75 mph, though not for long. Cheetahs only can run at top speed for 30 seconds before needing to rest.
Tyreek Hill is the second-fastest ballcarrier at 22.0 mph this year, according to Next Gen Stats. Hill also reached a top speed of 21.68 mph in Week 13, the fifth-fastest speed by a ballcarrier this season.
Any questions as to why he goes by “Cheetah”?
There should be no questions about Hill’s MVP candidacy, even if no receiver has ever won it — not Jerry Rice, not Calvin “Megatron” Johnson, not Justin Jefferson last season. The Cheetah promised a 2,000-yard season. His 93-for-1,481, 12-touchdown rampage gives him a legitimate shot to break Megatron’s single-season record (1,964 yards).
“Think about the teams he’s going to go against here soon,” ESPN analyst Louis Riddick told Serby Says. “He’s going to go up against New York, he’ll go against Sauce [Gardner] again. He’ll go to Dallas and go up against that defense, and I’m sure Daron Bland will follow him around a little bit and [Stephon] Gilmore and all that. Then he’s going to go to Baltimore … that’s going to be the showdown. So let’s just say he goes off for 100-, 150-plus in all those games, will first of all vault Tua [Tagovailoa] near the top as far as the discussion is concerned. And if people really want to be objective about it, you have to have [Hill] right up there at the top of the discussion if he burns all those teams.”
Riddick, an NFL safety from 1991-98, can understand perfectly the terror secondaries and defensive coordinators experience when Cheetah shows up.
“The guys who have always left an impression on me when I was playing, the guys who had plays where like I still tell people about,” Riddick said, “are the guys who had the kind of speed that you just can’t do anything against. It makes you change everything about the way you line up, the angles that you take, the defenses that you call, the attention you pay to him, your pre-snap identification. You’re always worried about where the hell that guy is, because you just know he has the one thing that you can’t out-compete, and that is he’s just that much faster than you.
“And Tyreek’s acceleration, his change of direction, his ability to run the entire route tree, the way he breaks angles, defies angles, can really stretch your defense horizontally and vertically in a way that just creates levels to your defense in a way that no one else really can. He stretches the gap between the second and third level — hell, he stretches the gap between the first and second level — because everyone’s worried about where he is, and if you aren’t worried where he is, you’re just doing it to your own detriment.
“There‘s no one in the league right now who does that like that. The two fastest players I ever played against who you worried about in that way were Rocket Ismail when he was in college at Notre Dame, and you always worried about where he was. And then Joey Galloway when he was in Seattle. These are freaks, man, and Tyreek is a freak.”
FS1’s “Undisputed” co-host Keyshawn Johnson, the first-overall pick by the Jets in 1996, would give his vote for MVP to Hill even as he recognizes it has become a quarterback award.
“There’s never been a guy like that who does what he does at the receiver position,” Johnson told Serby Says. “His size, his toughness, his ability to start and stop on a dime, give change, his ability to go from 0-60 in a heartbeat … that hasn’t been a part of the NFL. Guys like that either were running backs or punt return-kick return specialists. I’ve seen guys with his skill set, but not at the receiver position.
“You think about Dante Hall for instance. Dante Hall was a kick return specialist, a phenom. That’s why they called him “The Human Joystick,” because he was able to do some of those things. When I look at Jermaine Lewis from Baltimore, but he was more of a kick return specialist. Tyreek came into the league returning kicks and punts and whatnot, then he eventually got an opportunity to play the position, and did well.
“Antonio Brown came into the league more so as a return specialist, special teams guy, got the opportunity with Todd Haley & Co. [in Pittsburgh] and took it to the next level at the receiver position. So those are the type of guys that kind of remind me a little bit of Tyreek Hill. Kevin Williams from back in the day was the third receiver between “Playmaker”[(Michael Irvin] and Alvin Harper, but he had that same stuff.”
Former Giants GM and NFL historian Ernie Accorsi was asked if Cheetah reminded him of anyone.
“It’s hard to pick anybody like him,” Accorsi told Serby Says. “He’s almost impossible to cover. He’s got the combination of everything but size. But he doesn’t need size.”
He is a rocked-up 5-foot-10, 185-pound Cheetah.
“This guy was a little more of a straight-line guy, but somebody in his class on speed and size was Bob Hayes,” Accorsi said. “He wasn’t quite as elusive. He just ran by you.”
Accorsi’s searches through his memory bank and ponders WR Marvin Harrison and RB/WR Bobby Mitchell and WR Cliff Branch and settles more definitively on Hall of Fame Eagles flanker Tommy McDonald.
“He was a running back, a little guy, they converted him to wide receiver,” Accorsi said. “He was about the same size [5-9, 178], he had speed and he had the running back’s instincts. He could make you miss. He had great change of direction. He’s probably the greatest receiver in Eagles history.”
Former Bears RB Willie “The Wisp” Galimore was 6-1, 187.
“I brought his name up to [former Giants GM] Jerry Reese, of course Jerry Reese was young,” Accorsi said. “He had never heard of him. I said, ‘Go into the office and get him on YouTube. And about an hour later he came back and said, ‘Oh my god!’ He’d put your heart in your throat if you were playing against him. I don’t know what his size was, but yes, he was very similar to Hill.”
Former Jets GM Mike Hickey considers Cheetah one of one.
“There’s no such thing as a Cheetah wide receiver until this guy came out,” Hickey told Serby Says.
Hickey’s scouting report: “Cannot guard him with one man. You’re kidding yourself. When he’s even he’s leavin’. I’ve never seen a guy like the Cheetah. It’s insane. He’s got a combination of toughness, hands, athletic ability and world-class speed and acceleration. I don’t know how you guard him, I really don’t.”
Dak Prescott and Brock Purdy are the current MVP favorites while Cheetah has longer odds than four other quarterbacks, including his own Tua Tagovailoa.
Would Hickey vote for Cheetah? “Yes,” he said. Why? “Nobody’s any better,” he said. “When you’re dominant and producing, that’s generally an MVP.”
I had asked Jets CB D.J. Reed about Hill (9-102-1 TD) weeks before the Black Friday loss to the Dolphins.
“Just a unicorn. Everybody talks about his speed, but he’s actually a really good receiver,” Reed said. “See how he gets out of his breaks, he’s very precise with his route-running as well and on top of being very fast makes him extremely hard to cover. And he has decent ball skills, like he catches the ball very well. He’s one of those guys that you gotta circle and you gotta have everybody watching him, he’s just one of those players.”
One of those players who can cause a DB sleepless nights.
“You have to know the formations and what’s going on, and you have to understand what they’re trying to run and kind of anticipate it, and you gotta play with great eye discipline, you gotta play with great technique because one false move, one anything, he could be gone, so you really gotta prepare the right way to get ready for a guy like that.”
Cheetah was wooed hard out of Kansas City in March 2022 by Jets GM Joe Douglas but consented to a blockbuster trade to Miami to reset the wide receiver market with a record-breaking four-year, $120 million extension.
“I’m glad that he didn’t go to the Jets though. … We would have never seen this,” Johnson said. “Never.”
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