He's one unique cheetah: Dolphins players, coaches reveal what makes Tyreek Hill special

MIAMI GARDENS — A few days into training camp team meetings, Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel showed the players who had the fastest GPS-timed speed at the previous practice.

Undrafted rookie wide receiver Braylon Sanders was fastest.

"Dude, congratulations, you’ve been working hard!" McDaniel said to Sanders. "This is a great achievement!"

Veteran receiver Tyreek Hill, perhaps the fastest receiver in NFL history, noticed he was fifth.

"Man, you’re the fastest guy on the Dolphins!" McDaniel said to Sanders. "This is awesome!"

Later that day, Hill was clocked at 23.48 miles per hour in practice.

"Fastest ever recorded in practice here," McDaniel said this week. "Or that I've seen. Absurd. I was like, ‘OK, yeah, you’re different.’"

Miami Dolphins Mid-Season Report Card: Joe Schad's Grades

Top 25 Miami Dolphins players countdown: No. 1 is Tyreek Hill

Emmanuel Ogbah, Xavien Howard healthy: Now Dolphins need more

The Dolphins' trade for Hill has been a greater success than anyone could have imagined. He's on pace to break the NFL's single-season receiving record with more than 2,000 yards.

Hill, a league MVP candidate, is in fact one unique cat.

Asked last week about how he stewed while McDaniel praised the speed of another player, Hill remembered all the details of that perceived challenge.

"Come on, now. Come on, now," Hill said. "My name wouldn’t be 'Cheetah' for no reason — that’s what I do. But yeah, I feel like my whole entire life, I’m not a sore loser — I just love to win, man. I just love to compete."

The Palm Beach Post asked numerous Dolphins' players and coaches about what it is that makes Hill unique on and off the field.

"Competitive" is the word that was most often attached to Hill.

Hill was also asked what he thinks makes him unique.

"My ability to be available for his team," Hill said. "Each and every day, guys count on me to be that leader. Not only in the games but also during the week, man. Showing the guys, you know, like certain steps to get where you want to be at."

Added Hill: "I've always been that dude."

Miami is fortunate to have "that dude" on their side for Sunday's home contest against the Cleveland Browns (1 p.m., CBS).

Below is some of what the Dolphins said about what makes Hill, averaging a career-high 123 receiving yards per game, so special.

Note: Some of these comments have been edited lightly for clarity:

COMPETITIVENESS AND MINDSET

Tua Tagovailoa, quarterback: I would say the biggest thing I’ve noticed with Tyreek that he carries with him every time on and off the field is his competitiveness. He is always competitive. He’s competitive in everything he does. And I would say he’s a great teammate. He’s a great teammate for everyone on the team. I think a lot of people from the outside looking in can see that.

Wes Welker, receivers coach: I think first and foremost as a receiver, I think it’s your mindset and he definitely has that. Everything else is just about the details of things and being on top of all the assignments and the techniques and everything like that.

Frank Smith, offensive coordinator: I was fortunate enough early in my career in New Orleans to be around so many great players, and just the strain at which they operated just on a daily basis — he’s the epitome of that. How Tyreek is as a worker, how he is as a guy, that is what sticks out to me because that’s why you’re like, ‘That’s why he’s successful.'

SPEED AND QUICKNESS

Kader Kohou, cornerback: During OTAs, Tyreek was running fast as hell and he had just broken like a 20-yarder and I was like, 'That's crazy.' To be able to run that fast and turn that quick. That surprised the hell out of me. Then he caught a ball on the sideline. In OTAs people are running full speed but it's not that fast. When he turned up the sideline his legs were just moving so fast. I was like, 'What the hell?' That's when I was like, 'He's a freak.' I mean, he's not just fast. He's like super quick. All of his breaks are like real violent. He has good footwork. A lot of guys are just fast but you know doesn't really translate to the field. His translates like he's quick fast. Acceleration is crazy. He's super athletic. He can jump high. Catches the ball and he's competitive as hell.

Jevon Holland, safety: His speed makes him so unique. His selling point is his speed and his quickness, ability to get out of breaks. It's really his ability to go full speed and then break on a dime.

Skylar Thompson, quarterback: It was OTAs and I was up to go. I threw just like a play-action pass to the flat. And just like, the realization of like, how quick Tyreek got out there compared to some others. It was like, 'Dang, like, I've got be, be quicker.' You know, otherwise, I'm gonna be late.

Frank Smith: Unfortunately, I saw it for four years on the other sideline with the Raiders and Chargers. I remember back in 2018, he was lined up in the slot on a rookie nickelback and I’m just standing there going, like, ‘Uh-oh,’ and then he just runs right past him like he was like a cone.

Jaylen Waddle, receiver: Tyreek makes the unique things regular. He’s so special. The first time I knew he was just different was when he came on a motion, running full speed, and he had like, an out route, and he just, you know, converted all that speed and came right back out of it. That was it. I like like, 'That's it. This is different.'

ROUTE-RUNNING

Mike McDaniel: There was a particular route that I think we came up with in 2013. Trivia fact — it was Leonard Hankerson against the Chargers. That’s a deeper outbreaking route that not all that many people can run because the timing of the play and to push it that deep, you don’t always have protection for it. So I’ve been running that — it kind of got steam and ran it the most when we had Julio Jones, who was unbelievable at the route. And then seeing Tyreek in, I think it was probably OTA 4, if my training camp install schedule is correct in my brain, when he ran that. I've just had a lot of deliberate reps at viewing that route ran at an exceptional speed, depth, intent, and it was like, ‘Whoa.’ I’ve been fortunate to be around Andre Johnson in his prime, Julio Jones in his prime, Josh Gordon, Pierre Garcon, leading the league in receiving. All these great, great players, and he is different. We knew then in OTAs that yeah, this is a different deal.

Wes Welker: Tyreek can run every route. Some of the stuff that we’re able to do just because of the skill set and who he is and all those different things, your imagination can go crazy as a coach in all the different things that that you could possibly do with that type of skill set and mindset and everything just kind of clashing together to be able to produce the way he is.

Cedrick Wilson, receiver: It's just so easy for him to separate and run past people. And then the unique part of it is most people that are running that fast don't know how to break down with it. That's what's so unique about Tyreek.

PASSION AND WORK ETHIC

Frank Smith: To me, what sticks out is his passion, his work ethic, his ability. It starts in individual drills, how hard he works. Success isn’t by chance in this league. It’s not like — so many times people say, ‘Oh, wow. He makes it look easy.’ He makes it look easy because of his preparation and the diligence he has.

Wes Welker: I think if you watch Tyreek's blocking, you don’t see guys leading the league in receiving and blocking the way that he’s blocking. We take a lot of pride in that, and he’s at the forefront of that. It makes my job a lot easier when your best player in the room is buying in and doing those type of things. It leads to team success.

ENERGY AND SWAGGER

Trent Sherfield, receiver: I would say he's like a kid in the candy store when he's on the football field. And it's really cool to see a guy with legendary status, and a guy who is on his way, you know, to the Hall of Fame, approach the game the way that he does. And I genuinely respect it.

Eric Rowe, safety: Tyreek brings energy every day. He brings in into the locker room. Whether we're playing pingpong or Spike Ball or football it doesn't even matter. It's a competitive energy. And it disperses to the team because it's fun.

COACHABILITY AND HUMILITY

Mike McDaniel: The first time I took the trust fall and called him out in a team meeting, I think. And it wasn’t a callout — I shouldn’t really say callout because it’s not. It’s more that in team meetings, I think it’s very important to state the facts, and the facts are what’s on tape. So anything that’s on tape, we should be able to discuss openly. There was something that he didn’t do, I can’t remember what it was, but I vividly remember his response that day was corrected. So I kind of made note of that.

Trent Sherfield: When he showed up for OTAs, for me, I think that was, that was a big 'ah' moment. For me, you got a guy that's making $30 million a year and you get guys that don't, you know, they feel like they got it all together and feel like they don't, you know, got to come out and get better and stuff like that. But when I saw him show ups for OTAs and saw the way that he worked, I thought, 'This dude his different.' This was somebody I knew could lead us and somebody that we can, you know, get behind.

Kader Kohou: I'm sure if you didn't know who Tyreek was and he just walked in here, you wouldn't just think that he's like the best player on our team. He's like, he's pretty humble. Really humble, actually.

Cedrick Wilson: Off the field, day to day, the guy could be friends with anybody. He'd be friends with anybody in the locker room. It doesn't just have to be football players. It's with the coaches. The nutrition staff. He's an open book, friendly guy. And most of the time you don't get guys like that, that are superstars.

LEADERSHIP

Trent Sherfield: We were on the bus one day and guys were talking about dressing up for game day and stuff like that. Tyreek said to me that he wasn't worried about all that. He said he'd show up in a jumpsuit and play. He was more worried about playing football than the designer clothes.

Skylar Thompson: When I got into the Jets game, the first thing Tyreek told me was like, 'Skylar, don't feel like you've got to be perfect. Like, you just throw the ball in my direction. I'm going to catch the ball. Don't put any pressure on yourself, like you got this, like, I got you.' For me walking in there in that scenario, having him say that? I was like this is legit. He's legit.

Jaylen Waddle: I think he does a good job of just being you know, vocal. When he doesn't like something, he's going to tell us. When he wants more out of the team and more out of the players, especially offensively, he's going tell you, 'We need you.' So it's just strong leadership in general.

Skylar Thompson: Watching him, he leads those receivers. Like whenever Tua wants to call a meeting, Tyreek say, 'We're going as Tua goes.' And he communicates to those receivers, like, 'Hey, if we're meeting with Tua you'd better be there.'

Joe Schad is a journalist at The Palm Beach Post part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach him at jschad@pbpost.com. Help support our journalism. Subscribe today.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Tyreek Hill is incredibly unique, say the Miami Dolphins and here's why