MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — At some point, the NFL might have to consider counting IV bags toward Tyreek Hill’s salary cap figure.
The way the season is going, they might end up being one of the biggest line items on the Miami Dolphins‘ medical budget.
Hill said Sunday that he went through six bags Sunday — which, by South Florida standards, wasn’t extremely hot — and still had to leave the game due to cramps.
Hill pulled up lame in the middle of a 47-yard catch-and-run in the third quarter of the Dolphins’ 42-21 blowout win over the Panthers.
At some point, those involuntary muscle contractions are going to happen at a far less opportune time — like, say, late in this weekend’s game against the first-place Philadelphia Eagles.
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Why Does Miami Dolphins WR Tyreek Hill Chronically Cramp?
Anyone who’s ever had a Charley Horse knows how debilitating one can be. Now imagine being arguably the fastest player in the league. They’ve briefly knocked Hill out of multiple games this year — often late in the first half when he heads to the locker room early to get a jump-start on the intravenous fluids.
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“What’s crazy is I’m really sad about that play, and I know the team is going to give me a lot of crap for it, and they’re going to say I got ran down again,” Hill said of his latest cramping episode. “But as soon as I took a step, my calf was like, ‘No, sir, time to go get an IV.’ It was crazy.”
So, what causes cramping? The Mayo Clinic has a list of triggers, including overexertion, fluid loss through sweating, or holding a position for too long.
Other, more serious, causes are poor blood flow, nerve compression, and insufficient potassium, calcium, or magnesium.
“I think it’s something that we’ve tried and tooled around with,” coach Mike McDaniel said Monday when asked about potential fixes for Hill.
“He’s as accountable as it comes. He really takes that ‘C’ on his jersey serious with being captain. So, he’s trying to be hard and proactive. I’m sure he’s right. He’s a high-octane athlete that we’ve been proactive with some of the IV measures as well. I think it’s kind of game-related when you go a bunch of spurts where he’s doing some very explosive things where it seems to come up. We’ll continue to try to get ahead of that because we prefer when he’s on the field and not off of it for sure.”