"It's Time to End The Debate", Tyreek Hill & Noah Lyles Have Agreed to Race Each Other
Noah Lyles is such a interesting case to me. To win gold for the United States in the 100m dash, prove that the USA is home to the fastest man in the world, and still be widely disliked by Americans is an impressive feat. U.S. Olympians must have a 99.99% approval rating with American citizens. So much so that our entire country (with the exception of Boston sports fans holding a grudge against Steve Kerr) were actively cheering for LeBron James. But Noah Lyles managed to be so unlikable, and said all the exact wrong things leading up to the Olympics that he was able to overcome all of that. To the point that American's celebrated when he failed to win gold in the 200m dash later on that week. That's what happens when you come at our country's four major sports, and try to tell the Boston Celtics they aren't World Champions because they never beat Panathinaikos B.C. in a 7-game series.
To his credit, Noah's bad sports takes have helped him stay relevant post-Olympics. He annoyed people enough that even though he won the 100m, and finished 3rd in the 200m, the rest of the world convinced themselves that he is in fact a slow bitch who couldn't hold a candle to the fastest athletes real sports have to offer. He then made the terrible mistake of racing "the fastest streamer in the world" IShowSpeed. Despite Noah Lyles beating IShowSpeed at about 40% effort, mocking his running style as he crossed the finish line, he came out of the race with people thinking he was slower than ever.
And now we have people who are fully convinced that Tyreek Hill, the man we've loosely crowned as the fastest player in the NFL, would legitimately beat Noah Lyles in a race. Completely undeterred by the fact that Noah Lyles is fresh of winning the 60m final at yet another world event.
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I think it's pretty safe to say that the Tyreek Hill vs Noah Lyles race was agreed upon before that race even happened, and Noah Lyles used the massive spotlight that is the "New Balance Indoor Grand Prix" to promote it. The Hill v Lyles race will allegedly happen sometime in July. I can't find any stipulations of the race. If they run it on a track with starting blocks, Tyreek Hill is especially fucked. If he can convince them to run the thing on a football field with natural grass and cut the race down to 50-yards, then maybe he has a chance?
Probably not. But Tyreek Hill really does have an opportunity to deliver a hilarious blow to the sport of track & field. If an aging NFL star can outrun the world's fastest man, no matter how much the race his geared towards his strengths, that would be devastating for Noah Lyles. Just brutal for the image of track stars as a whole. For the rest of time, whether it's remotely true or not, people will always think that the NFL's current fastest receiver is actually faster than the 100m Olympic champion.
I don't think it will happen. Noah Lyles knows how bad that would look. He's not going to show up like he did vs IShowSpeed and just run alongside Tyreek Hill for a couple seconds then pull away at the end. The fact that Lyles just won a 60m event makes me think Tyreek Hill has even less of a chance. For a time I thought maybe if the race was 50-yards, that Tyreek Hill would be explosive enough to reach the finish line before Noah Lyles was able to get up to speed. Because when you watch Noah Lyles' 100m final in the Olympics, he doesn't seem to be an especially fast starter.
There's also this video floating around of Tyreek Hill's best high school time compared to a 200m dash at the 2016 Olympics in Rio.
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If you cherry pick the right numbers from the right time, you can really start to convince yourself that Tyreek Hill might just be right there with the world's fastest track stars.
But if Noah Lyles just won a 60m against the fastest men in the world… that's a pretty damn short race. For Tyreek Hill to win, I would think it would have to be the perfect storm of events. Maybe Noah Lyles is dealing with an injury. Maybe he really doesn't take Tyreek as seriously as he should. Maybe the race is 50-yards on a football field, and Tyreek Hill can convince them to put a 90-degree turn halfway through the race. Maybe he slips the groundskeeper some money under the table to "forget" to cut the grass leading up to the event. If I'm Noah Lyles, there's no way I'm racing on anything other than a track. He's the one with everything to lose. Tyreek Hill is playing with house money.
Or maybe I'm entirely wrong, and the people on the internet who I've been calling idiots this whole time are right. Maybe Noah Lyles really is slow ass bitch when compared to athletes who play REAL sports. I really doubt that. I really think if Noah Lyles gives it 100%, especially if the race is on a track, that Tyreek Hill won't even be close. But I'm cheering for it to happen. For Noah Lyles to go on a whole "track & field deserves more respect tour" and cap it off by losing to a football player. It would be the biggest L a collective sport has ever taken, all because Noah Lyles couldn't shut his mouth. It's too funny of a result to cheer for anything else.