Dave Hyde: ‘What if I wasn’t Tyreek Hill?’ — Dolphins star ponders police stop before season-opening win

His celebrating inside the stadium was tempered by his laying in handcuffs a few hours earlier outside it.

His speed in Sunday’s game-changing touchdown was juxtaposed with his being stopped for speeding by police on his drive to that game.

His answers about the Miami Dolphins’ 20-17 win against Jacksonville took a backseat to his question about being detained by police in the oddest season opener of them all:

“What if I wasn’t Tyreek Hill?” he said.

What if he wasn’t famous? What if he wasn’t rich? What if teammates didn’t come to help support him as he lay on the ground in handcuffs — and, in the case of Calais Campbell, a former NFL Man of the Year, get handcuffed, too?

This isn’t to take sides. Hill has too much of a past regularly littered with everything from immature actions to violent decisions to blindly say he did nothing on the way from turning a speeding stop into his being handcuffed on a sidewalk a couple of hours before kickoff.

The optics are awful both ways. Miami-Dade police put the officer in question on administrative duties. It also is, “reviewing body camera footage,” it said in a statement, meaning visual proof of something is coming. That will settle a lot of questions.

Is this a black man being unfairly treated by police? Is this an arrest going too far like with white golfer Scottie Scheffler, who was stopped this summer driving into the PGA Championship golf course in Louisville, Kentucky?

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Or was this the latest in a pattern of Hill and legal issues? Allegedly injuring a woman in backyard football. Allegedly hitting a man at a boat dock. This list goes on.

There was just one side talking Sunday, too. Hill’s first words about what happened with police was to say, “I’ve been trying to figure that out, too. Right now I’m trying to put it all together.”

Why was he put in handcuffs?

“I have no idea, for real,’’ he said. “No idea. No idea, man. It’s crazy. No idea. I wasn’t disrespectful, because my mom didn’t raise me that way. Didn’t cuss. Didn’t do none of that. So like I said, I’m still trying to figure that out.”

Campbell’s words matter. He’s as respected as any NFL player and said the police’s actions with Hill were, “a bit extreme and definitely unnecessary.” Campbell got out of his car to “just try to deescalate the situation and I think the officer just – I don’t know why he felt the need to put me in handcuffs.”

The only part of Sunday that wasn’t a surprise was Hill being at the center of the Dolphins’ celebration. One play after safety Jevon Holland caused a Jacksonville fumble on what looked like a sure touchdown and would-be 24-7 lead late in the third quarter.

The next play, Hill was sprinting down the field with an 80-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Tua Tagovailoa and the Dolphins had renewed energy that carried the day.

Hill celebrated as only he could. He put his hands behind his back as if handcuffed. He turned to the crowd and bellowed some words. He’d go on to have a seven-catch, 130-yard day, but that play changed everything.

“I think from then on, we found something,’’ Tagovailoa said of the offense.

The Dolphins addressed some questions Sunday that have dogged them in recent years. They weren’t frontrunners. They toughed out a win. They overcame a 14-point deficit that coach Mike McDaniel said his previous two Dolphins teams wouldn’t.

But the question of the day came from the man in the spotlight: “What if I wasn’t Tyreek Hill?”

How would he answer that?

“It’s hard,’’ he said. “I’m still trying to figure that out. It’s all across the world. You see it. I don’t want to bring race into it, but sometimes it gets kind of iffy when you do. What if I wasn’t Tyreek Hill? Lord knows what that guy or guys would have done.

“I was just making sure that I was doing what my uncle always told me to do whenever you’re in a situation like that: just listen, put your hands on the steering wheel and just listen. You’ve got to be careful.”

Dolphins Deep Dive: Dave Hyde, Chris Perkins break down Miami’s come-from-behind win over Jaguars and talk Tyreek Hill | VIDEO