More questions in Tyreek Hill saga
KANSAS CITY – Unless the murmurs are yet another illusion, any minute now the NFL will rule on the status of Chiefs’ star Tyreek Hill.
Congratulations if you think you know what to think about him and what to expect now. But brace yourself for a trap door ahead falling open into another hall of mirrors.
Because the only thing clear about this whole distressing affair is that it has become defined by its twists and the forcefield around it beyond the only two people who really know anything.
And woe be to those like me, who embraced a false flash of clarity in the fog – in my case, in the form of a sensationalized audio snippet.
Probably to a fault, I pride myself on restraint and nuance and taking a step back in this job. If your Mama says she loves you, check it out, I was taught. Don’t go past your own headlights.
But I submitted to a snap judgment on fragmentary information when I heard Hill say “you need to be terrified of me, too, dumb b----” and then wrote a column with the headline, “If the Chiefs care about honor and decency, Tyreek Hill can’t be part of this team.”
Particularly because they were stated to the woman (Crystal Espinal) Hill has pleaded guilty to abusing in the past, those appalling words still resonate. They make Hill’s presence here loaded and problematic to me.
They still feel like a red line crossed ... even if I now can’t quite reconcile what I think the consequence should be when it comes to the player who has essentially been suspended by the Chiefs since the April night that part of the audio was released.
SEATTLE – There’s a hashtag pinned to the top of Jalen Mcmillan’s profile page on Twitter.
Actually, scratch that. It’s not a hashtag. It’s not a marketing gimmick. It’s a movement.
And it was conceived at the fourstar Washington football commit’s dinner table during a conversation with his dad.
“My dad comes and says, ‘You should make your own hashtag,’” Mcmillan told The Seattle Times on Monday. “I was like, ‘What do you mean?’ And he said, ‘Something to go by when you recruit on Twitter.’
“It just popped in my head. #CALIREIGN. #PURPLEREIGN. I was like, ‘Yeah, let’s see if it works.’ “
News flash: it works. Mcmillan – the No. 4 wide receiver and No. 31 overall prospect in the 2020 class, according to 247Sports – tweeted the hashtag for the first time on July 2, exactly a week after the Fresno, Calif., native verbally committed to Washington. He tagged six Husky targets from the state of California – wide receivers Logan Loya, LV Bunkley Shelton and Troy Franklin, center Myles Murao, outside linebacker Jordan Banks and defensive back Makell Esteen – on the message as well.
Besides the hashtag, he added an eyeball emoji and two words – an open invitation. Who’s next? The answer was ultimately Murao – 247Sports’ No. 2 center and No. 77 overall recruit in 2020 – who pledged to UW on the Fourth of July.
But according to a mysterious Mcmillan, #CALIREIGN hasn’t finished reeling in fish.
“It’s going to be really cool to watch this next week,” he said, teasing another imminent commitment.
In the days since he first tweeted it, #CALIREIGN has started rolling – gaining traction with both recruits and fans on social media.
“Yeah, I’m fricken surprised about it,” Mcmillan said with a laugh, of the hashtag’s sudden surge in social media popularity.
Still, a hashtag can’t be credited with the Huskies’ longtime recruiting success in California.
“I’ve always felt that’s more overstated than anything,” 247Sports national editor Brandon Huffman said. “In a day and age of social media it becomes a movement that I think the fans really believe in and want to hope for. But I certainly think he’s an impact receiver and impact recruit that could have an effect for some of those out-of-state kids.”
UW already has a significant history of pulling impact recruits from The Golden State. After all, Washington has signed 62 California recruits in the Chris Petersen era, 48 percent of its total signees. That number has even increased in the last two classes, as 52.9 percent of signees or verbal commits in 2019 and 2020 are California kids.