Everyone — the player himself, the team, the fans, the league — is praying that running back Kareem Hunt’s second stint with the reigning Super Bowl champions goes better than the first one.
Apart from being hopeful, the Kansas City Chiefs seem confident that Hunt’s second run with the team will go much better.
As ESPN reported, the Chiefs lost star running back Isiah Pacheco to a broken fibula during the team’s 26-25 win on Sept. 15 over the Cincinnati Bengals.
With only a rookie (Carson Steele) and a 3rd-down specialist (Semaje Perine) left in the running back room, the Chiefs turned to a familiar face in Hunt.
The team hinted that Hunt could even play in Sunday’s tilt against the Atlanta Falcons.
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The Chiefs drafted Hunt back in 2017, and as crazy as it is to think about in hindsight, the former Toledo running back was a bigger star than fellow draft classmate Patrick Mahomes out of the gate.
(Mahomes didn’t become a full-time starter until the 2018 season.)
Hunt would eventually finish second in that year’s AP Offensive Rookie of the Year, a testament to just how good he was.
Alongside the emergence of Mahomes, it seemed the Chiefs had figured out a starting running back and starting quarterback situation for the next decade.
Do you think the Chiefs made the right move?
Until they didn’t.
In the midst of what was well on its way to being a great sophomore season in 2018, a video obtained by TMZ surfaced that showed Hunt getting into a physical altercation with a woman.
Hunt was seen violently shoving people after an altercation with a woman. At one point, he was so enraged that he had to be held back by multiple men.
You can view the video here, but be warned the video contains graphic content that may be disturbing to some readers.
That ugly incident led the Chiefs to promptly cut Hunt — despite his clear talent and productivity. The running back would also face further punishment from the NFL before ultimately being reinstated and joining the Cleveland Browns for the past few seasons. Hunt did not quite ever capture the magic (or productivity) of his stellar rookie season.
Now, back in Chiefs red, Hunt seems ready to try to re-capture that magic.
And the Chiefs seem eager to give him every opportunity to do so.
“We just thought he needed a change of scenery and get some help and take care of business there, and we felt like he did that,” Chiefs head coach Andy Reid told reporters on Wednesday, per ESPN. “He did a nice job in Cleveland, and we talked to the people there, and there were no issues there, so we felt OK by bringing him back. … It looks like he’s grown up.”
The longtime NFL coach added: “I think people deserve a second chance if they’ve done something to work on the first part of it.”
Mahomes, meanwhile, lauded Hunt and called him a “friend.”
“Everybody has friends that make mistakes — obviously some are bigger than others — but at the same time, you want to make the person better,” Mahomes said. “You want to see them taking the right steps to become a better person for themselves, their family and the rest of society.
“And so, I think you’ve seen that with Kareem, and so I’ve stayed in touch with him just to see how he’s doing, how his family’s doing, everything like that.
“He’s been able to carve out a great career in the NFL, but I mean you’ve seen he’s been able to keep his nose clean and be a better person, and that’s what you want in order to make everybody better people.”
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