MIAMI GARDENS — The Miami Dolphins were winning, and the clock said it would stay that way Monday night, even as Tyreek Hill sat in a wheelchair under Hard Rock Stadium in a way that made you wonder how to feel about this win.
There are moments, shooting out of a game or season like a flare, that define everything and Hill being wheeled to a waiting ambulance and then to the hospital where his season, perhaps even career ends, will be the biggest one of them for these Dolphins.
Hill’s knee was dislocated, his ACL ligament torn. Even with a long-awaited first win to the season that medical report feels like the state of the Dolphins now in some form, even if you couldn’t tell by any immediate reactions Monday night.
“I’m good, just make sure the guys get this win,’’ Hill told coach Mike McDaniel, like something out of a good kid’s movie, as the Dolphins receiver sat in a cart on the field with his leg already in an air cast.
Hill then smiled hard as the cart drove him off to the end of his season. He waved to the crowd. He put up the No. 1 finger. It was quite the exit, emotion surely masking pain, in a manner that brought a surreal look to the scene.
“He was probably in the best spirits of any player that I’ve ever – it’s just a terrible experience when you go out and see guy when they have issues like that,’’ McDaniel said, his thoughts tangling up in a manner everyone’s were this night.
There was the good of a win. The Dolphins needed one desperately after an 0-3 start. And if you fixate only on the feelgood stuff – the 3-0 turnover advantage, tight end Darren Waller’s eye-popping two touchdowns, McDaniel’s wonderfully balanced game plan – it was a remedy for a hurting season.
“A one-game win streak,’’ defensive tackle Zach Sieler framed it.
But this was a night where the good was tempered too much around it. There was the Jets, who had a youth-league look to the with 13 penalties but still racked up 199 yards rushing in a way that repeated concerns about this Dolphins defense.
Mainly, though, it was Hill’s injury that changed this night. He has all sorts of questions off the field from football issues like being constantly late to practice last season to allegations of domestic violence
No one questions who he is on the field, though. He’s the Dolphins best player and has been since he arrived a few years ago right to Monday’s injury. He caught a 10-yard pass along the sideline when the tackle by Jets safety Malachi Moore tangled their limbs to the point Hill’s knee bent in a way that was disorienting to see.
Even in a sport where serious injuries are common, this ensuing scene had an uncommon look to it. The Jets training staff immediately sprinted to him on their sideline. Dolphins trainers ran across the field. Players knelt. When he was put on the cart, Dolphins players went across the field to show him their respect.
“I saw him make eye contact and rip a joke or two to (Jaylen) Waddle or De’Von (Achane)” McDaniel said. “And, you know, I think a lot of guys got back into the game provoked by what he said verbally.”
It sounded like Florida Panthers captain Aleksander Barkov tearing his ACL last week and asking Bill Zito how the general manager felt. But South Florida lost its two best players to severe knee injuries in Barkov and Hill. At 31, with a big expense looming, Hill probably was playing his final year as a Dolphin. The question now is whether his elite game built on elite speed will still merit a nickname of, ‘The Thrill.”
“It’s football,’’ McDaniel said. “It’s 100 percent injury rate. Man, he’s great, valuable and a very important player to us, but every team has the same situation going on, different cadence. Everybody has injuries nobody cares about.”
The season goes on, he was saying, and he’s right. The Dolphins will talk of Waddle, Achane, even the revelation of Waller, assuming bigger rules. But there’s no next man up filling the role of Hill. Just ask the defenses who revolve each game plan around stopping him.
The Dolphins won game they had to win and lost the player they couldn’t lose. It was that kind of Monday night, one where you didn’t know how to feel about afterward.
