The Kansas City Chiefs have gone 6-0 this year when Tyreek Hill scores a touchdown and just 5-4 when he does not. That is a huge discrepancy between games in which Hill scores or doesn't. The Chiefs have got to know this by this point in the season and opponents surely do as well. The only problem with stopping Hill is that he cannot be stopped. He is the fastest open-field runner in the NFL and has the league's best quarterback, tight end, and head coach to help him along the way.

It comes down to the adage: You can't stop him, you can only hope to contain him. If the Bengals can “contain” Tyreek on Sunday, it will give them a fighting chance as long as they can get past an improved Chiefs defense. That is a big “if,” however, as the Kansas City defense is currently playing the best defense that they have played all year long and are getting healthy.

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Chiefs Week 17 X-Factor

Enough about the defense, though, as this article is about why Tyreek Hill is the X-Factor for Sunday's game. In 15 games played so far in 2021, Hill has 104 catches, 1,197 receiving yards, and nine touchdowns. Hill has had a down year in 2021–to his standards that is– his career 14.5 yards per catch is down to just 11.5 this year. That is despite Hill receiving more targets per game than he's ever gotten in his career. His career-high for targets was 135, set last year, and he is already up to 147 targets through 15 games in 2021.

One of the team's iron-mans, Hill has missed just six games over his entire six-year NFL career. That was threatened last week when he was forced to miss practice, test for COVID every day, and then test negative on the day of the game just to be able to play against the Pittsburgh Steelers.

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The process of acquiring and then getting rid of COVID-19 predictably drained Hill from an energy standpoint, and he had by far his worst game of the 2021 season in Week 16. Against the Steelers, Hill was targeted only twice, half of his previous low for the season, and mustered only 19 receiving yards with no scores. The Week before that, though, Hill went off against the Los Angeles Chargers for 148 receiving yards, including a 40-yard touchdown and 12 of 13 targets caught.

It will be that type of performance from Hill that will make him the X-Factor on Sunday against a Bengals team that has been on fire, especially offensively. Cincinnati has won two straight games and in the last one against the Baltimore Ravens, they put up 41 points, including 525 yards and four touchdowns by second-year quarterback out of LSU, Joe Burrow.

 

With the way Burrow is playing, it has become paramount for the Chiefs to be able to keep pace if this one turns into a shootout. If that does indeed happen and we have a very high-scoring game on Sunday, look out for Hill to top the 200-yard mark for the first time all year.