All things are aligned for Tyreek Hill to make sure this Y2K is not a bust.

When Hill predicted in July that he would become the first receiver in NFL history to reach the 2,000-Yard mark this season, it sounded overly ambitious. The Dolphins star has never led the league in receiving yards and was no lock to do so in his age-29 season over the Vikings’ Justin Jefferson, the Raiders’ Davante Adams, the Bengals’ Ja’Marr Chase, the Bills’ Stefon Diggs, the Jets’ Garrett Wilson, the Rams’ Cooper Kupp, the Eagles’ A.J. Brown or any of the other elites.

Then the games started, and Hill went off for 215 yards on 11 catches in a Week 1 win against the Chargers. Suddenly 2,000 feels … inevitable?

“I think it’s going to happen, and if anybody is going to do it, it’s going to be Tyreek Hill,” Hall of Fame tight end Tony Gonzalez said. “They have that extra [17th regular-season game] now. The rules are not like it used to be — you can’t hit the quarterback, can’t hit the receiver in the head over the middle, which is all good stuff. That all plays a factor into these guys getting yards after the catch and being braver to go up in traffic and catch the football. I think it’s just a matter of time.”

Post Sports+ posed the topic of 2,000 yards to Prime Video’s “Thursday Night Football” crew this week, and Gonzalez laughed, recalling that he and his fellow analysts recently had a similar discussion over drinks.

Hill was the unanimous answer because of his dynamic ability, his healthy track record (four games missed due to injury over eight seasons), quarterback Tua Tagovailoa’s willingness to force the ball to his No. 1 receiver and head coach Mike McDaniel’s pass-first scheme.

“The guy is uncoverable,” Gonzalez said. “He is so fast that if you don’t put two people — sometimes three people — [on him], I don’t know how you stop him.

“With that, I think Mike McDaniel, the way he can draw up a play to get guys open is incredible. He’s one of the best in the league. And there are certain quarterbacks who go out to a game like, ‘I’m going to spread the ball around and get everybody involved.’ There are also quarterbacks like, ‘If I have a guy I know I can count on, I’m throwing it to him all the time.’ That might be something Tua does.”

Former quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick — Tagovailoa’s teammate in 2020 — predicted that both Hill and Jefferson will top 2,000 yards this season. Calvin Johnson’s single-season record (1,964 yards in 2012) has been challenged by Kupp (1,947 in 2021), Julio Jones (1,871 in 2015), Antonio Brown (1,834 in 2015) and Jefferson (1,809 last season).

“It’s hard to double [team] Tyreek sometimes because they have him in motion moving around so much, where Jefferson sometimes is stagnant whether he is playing ‘X’ or they are running him in the slot,” Fitzpatrick said. “Jefferson is maybe the most dominant receiver in terms of lining up 1-on-1 and his versatility and the things he can do. But what Tyreek can do with the ball in his hands after the catch, with that offense, with how they are going to keep feeding him, [gives him a chance].”

Don’t pencil in a Dolphins-Vikings Super Bowl matchup, however. The mythical 2,000-yard milestone isn’t indicative of a great offense or of team success.

A closer look at the 10 highest single-season receiving yardage totals in the modern era (since 1970) shows that the player’s team failed to reach the playoffs three times, lost a Wild Card playoff game four times and only Kupp reached — and won — the Super Bowl. Only three of those teams converted all those receiving yards into a top-seven scoring offense.

But the Dolphins won a 36-34 shootout that featured nine lead changes in the season opener.

“Tua is all about throwing on anticipation in those small windows and getting the ball to these playmakers for catch-and-run balls,” Fitzpatrick said. “He’s very accurate when he is throwing within that 5-to-20-yard range.”

The list of 2,000-yard candidates took a hit last week when Wilson lost quarterback Aaron Rodgers for the season and Kupp was put on injured reserve, sidelining him for at least four games. Brown is at a disadvantage because the Eagles frequently could be playing with double-digit leads (see: Week 1) and taking fewer chances through the air.  

“I guess in a way it’s inevitable because if offenses somehow slow down, they will make a new rule to give them another advantage,” former cornerback Richard Sherman quipped. “That’s just the way the game is, so it will happen because they want it to happen.

“I would say Tyreek is probably the guy to get there because he’s just the fastest. He has [215] now, and he’ll probably have 180 next game. If he gets 10 games of 200, he’s there before Week 11.”

Of course, it once was Sherman’s job to shut down great receivers.

“I think it will be difficult because every defense isn’t just going to let Tyreek just run free and single-cover him,” Sherman said. “Even though … he is beating the hell out of your team, [Chargers head coach] Brandon Staley still decided to single him up the whole game. He should’ve been fired that day — but that’s a story for a different day.

“There are brackets and ways people can contain him and make the ball go to other people. You have three people responsible for Tyreek, literally. There are times he will probably run through that, but you can take Tua’s eyes away from him at times and force Tua to go to whoever else he has as weapons.”

Not unlike the way the world overreacted to the Y2K digital bug in 1999, former offensive tackle Andrew Whitworth thinks there might be some hysteria caused by one great game.

Even with a 17-game schedule, a receiver must average 117.6 yards per game to reach 2,000. Only six players have averaged 117.6 for a season, and only Johnson did it over more than 14 games.

“To average more than 117 yards per game over 17 games would be a pretty big challenge week-in and week-out,” Whitworth said. “In these big, explosive games, teams allow you to have the opportunity like the Chargers just did.

“Over a span of 17 weeks, I don’t know if you are going to be able to keep that kind of average going when it’s only really happened one time that a receiver averaging that much played a full season because of exposure and the amount of targets it takes.”

That said, if Whitworth had to pick one …

“If you look at what it would take to get there,” Whitworth said, “Tyreek can create when he has the ball in his hands at the line of scrimmage, he can create by beating you with his pure speed and then you watch some of the stuff Mike McDaniel did to get him open and create separation, he can really hurt you at any level of the defense. He’s not some guy that is going to just beat you with deep balls or 1-on-1s. He can beat you in a lot of different ways.”

Maybe only a computer can figure out how to stop him.

Fact or fiction

This is the best week of the NFL season for overreactions that either can be quieted or ignited in Week 2. What’s true and what’s false?

1. The Browns are going to win the AFC North. The Bengals overcame an 0-2 start last season to win the division, and the Ravens are used to playing without injured running back J.K. Dobbins. The Browns’ defense-dominated 24-3 win against the Bengals signaled that the AFC North could be a three-playoff-berth division (sorry, Steelers). But the Browns on top? Fiction.

2. Cardinals head coach Jonathan Gannon is on the hot seat one game into his tenure. Gannon’s viral “fire in your gut” speech during training camp was cringe-worthy. He cut starting quarterback Colt McCoy — signaling the “tank” for the No. 1 draft pick is on — and refused to publicly name a starter (it was Josh Dobbs) before Week 1. Then his defense lost a fourth-quarter lead to the Commanders’ Sam Howell, who was making his second career start in Week 1. Ugly stuff. Eleven head coaches have been fired after just one season at the helm since 2011. Fact. 

3. Finally, this is the Cowboys’ year to make it back to the Super Bowl. Wow, that defense was suffocating with seven sacks and three takeaways in a 40-0 pasting of the Giants. But the Cowboys own the Giants, with 12 wins in the past 13 meetings. Let’s first see if they can sustain that level of dominance against the class of the NFC, either the Eagles or 49ers. Fiction.

4. The Chiefs need to trade for a receiver ASAP or risk a wasted season of Patrick Mahomes’ prime. Kadarius Toney’s head might as well have been buried in his Instagram account — reading and returning messages from angry Giants fans — instead of watching the ball when he dropped three passes in a loss to the Lions. Regardless of how soon Travis Kelce returns from injury, the Chiefs need another pass-catching weapon to keep pace in the AFC. The Buccaneers’ Mike Evans, anyone? Fact.

5. The Packers will make the playoffs and the Jets won’t. A friend has been in my ear about this prediction for weeks — long before Aaron Rodgers’ season-ending torn Achilles threw the Jets off course and Jordan Love’s three-touchdown start to a new era in Green Bay. I disagreed until Week 1 was over. Now? Fact.

6. The Rams are back. How quickly we forgot that the Rams averaged 11 wins per season from 2017-21, culminating in a Super Bowl championship. A 5-12 season will do that to the memory. For as long as Matthew Stafford is at quarterback, Aaron Donald is on defense and Sean McVay is on the sidelines, the Rams have a chance. The only problem? It’s hard to imagine age not catching up to Stafford, Donald and others in this core. Kupp is already on injured reserve. Fiction.

J-E-T-S! Flex, flex, flex!

The NFL thought that it was scheduling an updated version of the star-powered Peyton Manning-era Colts and Broncos when it put the Jets in six primetime windows during the 2023 season.

Instead, after Rodgers’ season-ending injury four plays into the Jets’ season opener, league and television executives must be wondering if they will be stuck showcasing this year’s version of the Matt Ryan-era Colts and Russell Wilson era-Broncos.

Just last season, the NFL mistakenly initially scheduled the Broncos (five) and Colts (four) in primetime a total of nine times, including one of the ugliest games of the year when they went head-to-head. Both teams turned out to be unwatchable on offense and floundered toward missing the playoffs — but only one of those nine games was flexed out of prime time.

Now, the NFL is left with the Zach Wilson-led Jets on “Sunday Night Football” in Week 4 against the Chiefs and Week 10 against the Raiders, on “Monday Night Football” in Week 9 against the Chargers, and on “Thursday Night Football” in Week 17 against the Browns. Oh, and in a stand-alone “Black Friday Game” Week 15 against the Dolphins.

There is a reason the NFL didn’t finalize its schedule until after Rodgers was traded from the Packers to the Jets. Wilson is not it.

So, are plans already in the works to bump the Jets out of prime time during the two times they are eligible (Weeks 10 and 17) under the NFL’s expanded flex scheduling model? Not so fast, especially after the Rodgers-less Jets upset the Super Bowl-contending Bills on a dramatic walk-off punt return touchdown in overtime on Monday night in Week 1.

“The game itself was an incredible win for the Jets, and they are sitting 1-0,” Chief Operating Officer of NFL Media Hans Schroeder said Tuesday on a teleconference. “We’ve seen in this league a long history of players stepping up, new players emerging. You saw what happened with [Brock] Purdy last year in San Francisco or what happened 20-plus years ago with [Tom] Brady in New England when [Drew] Bledsoe got hurt.”

Counting on Wilson becoming Brady — or even Purdy — is a risk. Quarterbacks drive television ratings.

“We’re going to do what we always do: Prepare and look ahead in the schedule,” Schroeder said. “We’ve had a pretty good crystal ball when we think about things. We only flex a little over 1 ½ times per year if you look on average over the last close to 20 years of flex. … We’re always going to keep that focus on how we get the best games we can into each window, but the Jets are 1-0 right now.”

College football game to watch

Penn State at Illinois, Saturday, noon ET, Fox

There isn’t a matchup between two top-25 teams on the weekend schedule, but, if you like watching the trenches, this Big Ten matchup is a good place to start your Saturday because it will feature two projected first-round picks on opposite sides (but not matching up head-to-head).

Illinois defensive tackle Jer’Zhan Newton has nine tackles and two sacks through two games. He has the makings of a three-down NFL player.

Penn State left tackle Olu Fashanu played less than half of the offensive snaps in last week’s rout of Delaware — raising injury concerns — but he is healthy and should be back at a full workload, said head coach James Franklin, who saw an opportunity to get his prized big man off his feet and get some game experience for younger players.