Mecole Hardman? Tyreek Hill? Who returns punts for Chiefs in playoffs? We asked.
Amid a momentarily silent crowd last January, Chiefs receiver Mecole Hardman fielded a kickoff, burst through a seam in the middle of the field and 58 yards later put the team in scoring position. A playoff comeback against the Texans can be traced to a handful of turning points upon reflection, but this was the first one. The first real spark.
The Chiefs had trailed 24-0 at that point, and Hardman’s return set up their first touchdown in what would become an onslaught of them.
“A game-changer,” Tyreek Hill would say afterward.
The Chiefs have another guy capable of transforming a game with a return, too. He was once considered among the very best at it.
Hill.
Hill has since moved almost exclusively to his role as the team’s No. 1 wide receiver, but that was true a year ago too, before he suddenly appeared as a punt returner in the team’s first playoff game.
Have the Chiefs preserved Hill for the postseason again this year? Well, not exactly . . .
“Tyreek is always in the mix,” Chiefs special-teams coach Dave Toub said. “He’s a guy who we know can come in a do a great job for us. . . . He’s always an option. Demarcus Robinson, he’s an option.
“But right now, Mecole is our No. 1 guy. Mecole, he’s got a good body of work behind him. He’s our guy. He’s our No. 1 guy.”
For now, the Chiefs are planning to stick with the man who brought them this far. Hardman has 25 of the team’s 28 punt returns this season. Robinson has two, and one of them turned quite disastrous, resulting in a safety that felt fortunate it wasn’t worse.
Hill has returned just one punt all season. In Week 4, they put him back there against the Patriots, and he muffed the catch near the sideline before the ball went out of bounds.
But don’t take that as an indication his days in that role are completely over. He had just one punt return in 2019 — which also gained zero yards — yet the Chiefs still tried him in their first playoff game against the Texans. It didn’t go well — he fumbled in the first quarter, a turnover that led to the Texans extending their lead to 21-0.
Still, Toub said Hill is the team’s best punt catcher, and they’ll always consider him an option. His usage on offense has limited how much they want to expose him in the return game.
Plus, they like Hardman. Even if his season ended on a sour note. Hardman fumbled a punt he tried to receive on a hop in Week 17 against the Chargers, and it resulted in a turnover. It was not a mistake in judgment, per his coaches, but rather a ball that fell into his lap that he simply dropped.
“He just took his eye off the ball. The ball bounced right to him,” Toub said. “He just bobbled it, put it on the ground, and it ended up being a bad play obviously.”
While Hardman was stripped of kick return duties in favor of more north-south options like Byron Pringle and Rashad Fenton, the Chiefs have always felt Hardman’s skill-set was best suited for punts. And they’re pleased with the progress there. Hardman had his first career punt return for a touchdown in Miami, a 67-yarder.
“It’s hard to see it on tape, but he’s so much more in tune with what’s going on and what punters are doing and what they’re trying to do to him,” Toub said. “All the small details that you really can’t see as a fan or as a normal person who’s watching tape, he’s catching on. He’s doing very well. He’s getting better.”
This story was originally published January 15, 2021 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Mecole Hardman? Tyreek Hill? Who returns punts for Chiefs in playoffs? We asked.."