In addition to being one of the most exciting players in the NFL, Dolphins star wide receiver Tyreek Hill is also apparently a serious historian of the game. Hill took to Instagram to celebrate both his own Madden rating and teammate Jaylen Waddle’s Madden rating, and shared a reference to a couple of Bears deep cuts at wide receiver.
It’s obviously not unusual for football players to grow up football fans. Yet it’s a little surprising to see Hill, who grew up in Georgia, name check a Bears wide receiver like Johnny Knox.
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Knox was a fifth-round pick for the Bears in 2009 and found instant success on offense, largely because he was really, really fast. In 45 career games, Knox racked up 133 catches for 2,214 yards and 12 touchdowns. He was a Pro Bowler his rookie year. But Knox was limited to just 45 games because he suffered a career-ending spine injury in Week 15 of his third season. Knox doesn’t come up in conversation very muchー and almost never on a national stageー and when he does, it’s usually to talk about what could have been if he hadn’t suffered that devastating injury.
Hester isn’t a Bears deep cut, per se, but he certainly isn’t thought of as a wide receiver as much as he is as a return man. In fact, Hester joined the team as a defensive back and the team converted him into a wide receiver a little bit into his career as a way to get the ball in his hands more often. Apart from 2009 when Hester flashed as a pass catcher, the wide receiver experiment didn’t work too well. Over his Bears WR career, he averaged just 2.2 catches and 30.8 yards per game and averaged 2.3 receiving touchdowns per year.
So Hill name checking Hester and Knox is pretty cool for Bears fans, but honestly Hill and Waddle surpass the retro Bears duo on the field.