Fantasy Football: Should both Travis Kelce and Tyreek Hill be first-round picks?

We’re in the thick of the NFL offseason and it’s officially time to start fantasy football prep. I’ll be answering the biggest questions heading into the 2021 season. Click here to read the series of questions answered so far.

The Kansas City Chiefs have Patrick f*cking Mahomes; many of the problems a typical NFL team faces throughout the course of any given season are rendered a non-issue when the best quarterback alive plays for your team. The Chiefs also happen to be blessed with arguably the game’s No. 1 field-stretching receiver in Tyreek Hill as well as the undisputed top receiving tight end in the business with Travis Kelce.

Throw in the presence of Andy Reid and his ever-gloriously schemed offense, and there’s pretty much always a good place to go with the football. The embarrassment of riches the Chiefs have been afforded at quarterback, wide receiver and tight end alike is the main reason why this offense again looks like one of the league’s most-lethal units ahead of 2021.

What follows is a breakdown on just how special Hill and Kelce have been during their respective careers as well as what to make of their fantasy football stock entering next season.

Hill is nicknamed TyFreak for a reason

Aside from Mahomes, there perhaps isn’t another player more important to the Chiefs’ offensive success than Hill. It’s tough to think of a bigger bargain across the league outside of rookie-contract signal-callers, as Hill’s past troubles with the law resulted in him 1) falling to the fifth round of the 2016 draft, and 2) signing a modest (for him) three-year contract worth $54 million back in October 2019.

Regardless of how the Chiefs obtained Hill’s services, he’s emerged as of one of the best and most-productive playmakers in the league. Since entering the NFL, Hill ranks as a top-10 wide receiver in PFF receiving grade (92.3, No. 6), receiving yards (5,391, No. 7), receiving TDs (47, No. 2) and yards per route run (2.35, No. 5) among 156 players at the position with at least 100 targets.

Of course, Hill has impacted the game in more ways than by just catching the ball. He returned four punts as well as one kick to the house during his first three years in the league and to this day provides plenty of juice as a rusher. Overall, nobody has averaged more yards per carry than Hill (7.4) among 225 players with at least 50 rush attempts since 2016.

Tyreek Hill is the best running back on the Chiefs pic.twitter.com/c8PKJ50DO9

— Ian Hartitz (@Ihartitz) January 19, 2021

Hill unsurprisingly owns the Next-Gen Stats’ record for fastest speed reached by a ball carrier at 23.24 miles per hour. Yes, Mahomes has the sort of arm talent to make any throw on the field. Also yes, Hill usually makes things fairly easy for his quarterback — nobody has been considered open or wide open more than Hill on targets thrown 20-plus yards downfield over the past three seasons (31, including playoffs). No other receiver even touches 25 targets.

If defenses double Hill? Good luck stopping our next subject.

Kelce is just about as unstoppable as any tight end we’ve seen

I took the privilege of identifying 20 stats demonstrating Kelce’s dominance prior to Super Bowl LV. My top-five: