Miami Dolphins wide receiver Tyreek Hill is have a special season so far in 2023. Through 11 games, he has 88 receptions for 1,324 yards and 10 touchdowns. He currently leads the NFL in several categories: receiving yards, receiving touchdowns, receiving yards per game (120.4), yards per touch (14.8), and yards from scrimmage (1,343).
If he continues at his current pace, Hill could become the first wide receiver in NFL history to accumulate over 2,000 receiving yards in a season. Former Detroit Lions wide receiver Calvin Johnson holds the NFL single-season record with 1,964 receiving yards.
There is little doubt that Hill is in the discussion for being the best wide receiver in the NFL today. However, his position coach, Wes Welker (himself a five-time Pro Bowl and two-time First-Team All-Pro wide receiver) indicated that it may be time to put Hill in the conversation as one of the best to ever do it.
Miami Dolphins Coach Wes Welker Says Tyreek Hill Is a Better Wide Receiver than Randy Moss Was
As stated above, former Pro Bowl wide receiver Wes Welker is the wide receivers coach for the Miami Dolphins. He clearly has some of the best talent in the NFL to work with in Hill and Jaylen Waddle.
Welker has also played with some of the best players in recent NFL history. His quarterbacks for most of his NFL career were Tom Brady and Peyton Manning. Welker came to the New England Patriots in the same year that Hall of Fame wide receiver Randy Moss did, 2007.
Having played with the best, it stands to reason that Welker would know what the best look like.
This being said, Welker recently stated that Hill is a better all-round wide receiver than Moss was:
Randy Moss was the best deep ball receiver in the game. Tyreek Hill runs the whole route tree. Name a route he can’t run. How he approaches every day and every game is very impressive. That’s where he separates himself. – Wes Welker
— Joe Schad (@schadjoe) November 30, 2023
This is extremely high praise for Hill. Randy Moss is often considered one of the top two wide receivers in NFL history alongside Jerry Rice.
Is It Fair to Say that Miami Dolphins Wide Receiver Tyreek Hill Is Better than Randy Moss Was?
The question, then, is whether or not it is too soon to put Hill in that category. He is playing in his eighth NFL season and has made the Pro Bowl in each season previously. Hill has also been named First Team All-Pro four times.
First of all, if one is going to put a player that has only played seven complete seasons in the NFL among the NFL greats, the Hall of Fame should put former Green Bay Packers great Sterling Sharpe in the Hall of Fame right now.
Second of all, Hill would need 1,000 more yards (in six more games) to match Moss’ eight-year total of 10,700 yards in his first eight seasons, and that was with a 16-game season as opposed to a 17-game one.
Moss also scored 101 touchdowns in his first eight seasons compared to Hill’s 73.
It may very well be true that Hill is having a better season in 2023 than Moss ever had. He may be having the best season for a wide receiver in NFL history for that matter. And it is likely that Hill will end up in the Hall of Fame himself.
Of course, Welker is saying that Hill can run a more diverse set of routes than Moss. And it is true that Moss made his name on being a lethal deep threat. However, if we are going to make the argument that it is hard to compare quarterbacks across different eras, shouldn’t the same be true for other positions?
The fact of the matter is that Moss is one of the all-time greats and Hill could very well be on his way to being in that discussion. But they are two different players from two different eras.
The time for that conversation has not come yet.