Tyreek Hill, CeeDee Lamb, and Davante Adams are three of the best wide receivers that the NFL has seen in recent memory. Between them, they have 18 Pro Bowl appearances and 9 All-Pro first team selections. The continued success may make some wonder what makes the three of them so elite.
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What’s great about Hill, Adams, and Lamb is that all three rose to the top because of talent and hard work. Usually, most players coast on talent, but the three have also put in a significant amount of hard work.
That’s why at the Fanatics Fest this past week, the three receivers sat down to give some insight into their favorite workout drills. They started with Adams.
“It’s not about me having better footwork, it’s about me exercising my right to use my footwork every time I get pressed. So, when I get there, the DB is never thinking, ‘Oh, he’s just going to take off.’ I don’t make it easy on the guy. I’m going to get there and I’m going to try to work you and get you off the spot,” Adams described on Catching Fire.
Davante went on to describe how he likes to work on his footwork and leverage for drills. Most importantly, he likes to have a defender in front of him to work against. Adams doesn’t think doing drills against nobody makes him a better player. He even brought up the host, Keegan Michael-Key, to defend him so he could give a visual example of what he likes to work on.
For CeeDee, though, he was a bit more specific on what part of the route he likes to work on for drills.
“For me, it was working the top of the route and getting in and out of my brakes. I feel like being a much taller guy, you know you’re average, and then playing in the slot, I feel like that gave me a little bit of an advantage because if I was Tyreek’s height, that would be f**king hard for me to be in a slot,” Lamb said.
The comments got a bit of a head tilt out of Hill. He then jokingly labeled CeeDee as a “body shamer” while grinning. But Lamb meant no offense by the comments. He was simply trying to describe how being taller in the slot is an advantage for him because if he were short, he would need elite speed, which he lacks.
“I just want to be able to get in and out of my routes like a much shorter guy,” Lamb added.
However, the height disparity between him and the average slot receiver hasn’t been a negative so far. CeeDee, who is 6’2″ and weighs 200 pounds, even said that it’s an advantage most of the time. It doesn’t matter that he doesn’t run the most crisp routes; his height and strength can make up for it.
In the case of Hill, he unsurprisingly likes to spend his offseason workout days at the track.
“For me, I’ve been a track guy my whole life, and I train track every offseason. Literally, I bust my tail on the track. So, I don’t do football drills until whenever it’s closer to training camp. So, I do my track work just so I can build my endurance in all of my muscles. That’s what helped me from injury [prevention]. Because most speed guys have hamstring injuries, groin injuries… I’ve been able to avoid most of that stuff,” Hill said.
Tyreek has always been good at staying healthy. Last year, his wrist was bothering him for most of the season, which he played through, and he got surgery at the end of the year. But for the most part, Hill’s legs have remained incredibly healthy throughout his career. Now we know it’s because of his track work.
All in all, it was amazing insight coming from three of the best receivers in the NFL right now. It was also cool to see three guys at different points in their careers sit down and chop it up about the game. We rarely get to see players of this caliber on different teams do such a thing. But Hill, Adams, and Lamb obliged and gave us some great content.
