A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Hours before kickoff on the first Sunday of the NFL season, police detained a star wide receiver not far from Miami's Hard Rock Stadium. Tyreek Hill of the Dolphins was released in time to play in yesterday's game, but the incident unsettled him and players across the league. NPR sports correspondent Becky Sullivan is now here. Becky, what happened?
BECKY SULLIVAN, BYLINE: Yeah, so videos on social media appear to show the receiver being detained by cops next to his car, like, a luxury sports car. So you can see four officers surrounding him. In one video, you can see an officer that's seeming to - the view is kind of blocked, but you can see the officer kind of shoving or kicking him. In another video, you could see an officer kneeling on his back as they put him in handcuffs. Hill appears to be calm and still throughout the videos. It's unclear exactly what prompted the encounter besides that he was pulled over for a traffic incident. Reportedly, he was cited for reckless driving, but certainly no explanation as for why he was handled so physically.
Hill was on his way to the stadium for Sunday's game between the Miami Dolphins and the Jacksonville Jaguars and so, you know, his teammates were also on the way to the game. And at least one, the defensive lineman Calais Campbell, stopped to try to de-escalate the situation. And he also said that he was handcuffed and cited with disobeying a police order. So just a chaotic situation, for sure.
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah, A really unsettling way to begin a game day. So what did Hill and the Miami-Dade officials say afterward?
SULLIVAN: Well, I should say the players were released in time to play, which, you know, the incident didn't seem to affect Hill at all. In fact, he scored this, like, pretty flashy touchdown. And to celebrate, he had a teammate pretend to arrest him. But afterward, he talked to reporters. And he asked, you know, what would've happened if he hadn't been a star for the football team?
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TYREEK HILL: I don't want to bring race into it, but sometimes it gets kind of iffy when you do. You feel me? So what if I wasn't Tyreek Hill? Lord knows, like, what that guy or guys would've did.
SULLIVAN: You know, and as for the police, Miami-Dade Police Director Stephanie Daniels said the department has placed one officer on administrative leave. And then just, overall, the incident is under investigation.
MARTÍNEZ: So this kind of reminds me of what happened with golfer Scottie Scheffler.
SULLIVAN: Definitely.
MARTÍNEZ: Not that long ago, right?
SULLIVAN: Definitely. Yeah, that was back in May. He was arrested by Louisville police outside a golf tournament that was being held there. So Scheffler, you know, was booked, faced four criminal charges, ended up going on to play in the golf tournament that day. The charges were ultimately dropped a couple of weeks later. He did not end up with his face on the pavement like Hill did yesterday. A big difference, of course, being that Scottie Scheffler is white; Tyreek Hill is Black. Hill's agent says he will seek legal recourse for what happened yesterday. And, of course, we'll wait to find out whether there's any body camera footage or whatever else the Miami-Dade police can find as they investigate.
MARTÍNEZ: All right. So a question - another question off the field. Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott signed a new contract - $60 million a year.
SULLIVAN: Oh, yeah.
MARTÍNEZ: So I realize quarterback is probably the most important position in any team sport anywhere, but 60 million?
SULLIVAN: Yeah, you know, and the other thing is that $60 million is - almost all of it is guaranteed, which means, you know, if he gets hurt or if he just doesn't play very well, he'll still get paid. It's an astonishing amount of money. And so, you know, to give you a sense, the salary cap for an entire NFL team is about $255 million. That's got to pay 53 players. So, you know, to spend almost a quarter of that on one guy, on one hand, that's wild. But on the other hand, as you say, we're, like, in this era now at the NFL where a quality quarterback is just simply the most important piece of any team. You just can't contend with the Super Bowl without one.
And so, you know, when you're Patrick Mahomes of the Kansas City Chiefs, a contract like that is worth it, no question. Now, where the question comes in for Cowboys fans is whether Dak is. So statistically, he's quite a good quarterback, but he just doesn't do well in the playoffs. He saw the Cowboys to the playoffs five seasons but has only won two games. So, you know, was that enough to commit some big money to him, or would it have been better to walk away? The Cowboys chose the former.
MARTÍNEZ: That's NPR's Becky Sullivan. Becky, thanks.
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