Hill relishes Bowl run after ruinous offseason

MIAMI — Just over six months ago, Tyreek Hill was uncertain whether he would ever play another game in the NFL.

He had become the object of scorn among many Kansas City Chiefs fans when audio surfaced early last year in which his then-fiancee accused him of hurting their 3-year-old son. The team banned him from its facility, the district attorney began an investigation, and the NFL and the Kansas Department for Children and Families got involved.

He went from potentially landing a massive contract to potentially looking for a new line of work.

All of which makes this week at the Super Bowl seem so much like a dream.

The district attorney eventually declined to press charges after being unable to determine who had caused the injuries to the child. The NFL decided not to suspend Hill, who had been kicked off his team at Oklahoma State after another domestic violence incident, because it could not conclude that he had violated its personal conduct policy.

The Chiefs immediately welcomed him back in time for training camp, and that big contract he was close to landing? Hill put pen to paper on the $54 million, three-year extension ahead of the first preseason game in August.

“I feel like I’m truly blessed. Each and every day I get up and play the game I love, be around people who are loving, and I get to be around my kids and be in their lives,” Hill said this week. “I feel like if God gives you breath in your lungs, you’re blessed right there, because that’s just another opportunity to be a better you than yesterday. And I’m still working on myself each and every day, to be a better man and a better father and all of it.”

Hill spends more time with his kids these days, even finding time during the stress of Super Bowl preparations to play with them on the plush hotel campus the Chiefs are calling home.

He invests in charitable causes in Kansas City, volunteers with local schools, and his own foundation works to provide opportunities for single parents and at-risk youth.

“I would go back to his first year with us when there were some question marks about him coming into the league. We never had any issues with him,” Chiefs chairman Clark Hunt said.

“He always was where he was supposed to be, doing what he was supposed to be doing, accountable to the team, listening to his coaches, a good teammate. We’ve seen that grow over the last three or four years. And I sense a heightened level of maturity this year, which is probably a natural byproduct of the challenges that he’s gone through this year.”

Indeed, the way Hill acts away from the field means as much to coach Andy Reid as anything he does on it.

“I’m proud of him for that, to see growth in somebody,” Reid said. “You like that with these young guys. He’s doing well as a father and he’s doing well as a football player and we’re lucky to have him.”