The Cleveland Browns were proud of their one-two punch (pun only partially intended after the fact) with Nick Chubb and Kareem Hunt, the latter of whom they only had the opportunity to add after he got into trouble for kicking a woman in a hotel lobby and was released by the Kansas City Chiefs in his second season after making the Pro Bowl and looking well on his way to another.
Frequently since that time, he has proven to be a very nice complementary back to Chubb, who is regarded as one of the best running backs in the NFL in his own right, if not the best pure runner in the game today.
But the Browns let him walk this offseason, and even though Mary Kay Cabot of Cleveland.com believes the team will still look to add another veteran back to the roster, she insists that it won’t be a reunion with Hunt—or with any other big-name back currently on the market, and there are a few.
A third-round pick out of Toledo in 2017, Hunt led the league in rushing as a rookie for the Chiefs with 1,327 rushing yards and 455 receiving yards with 11 total touchdowns. By the time he was let go 11 games into year two, he already had 14 combined touchdowns and 1,202 yards from scrimmage.
Cleveland had a connection with Hunt in that their general manager, Jon Dorsey, was responsible for drafting him in Kansas City. They brought him in even knowing that he would be serving an eight-game suspension, but he played well the role of second fiddle, at least until last season.
Between 2019-2021, he rushed for 1,406 yards with 13 touchdowns on 319 carries, averaging 4.4 yards per attempt. He caught 97 passes for another 763 yards and six more touchdowns, totaling 2,169 yards from scrimmage with 19 total touchdowns. Not bad work for your secondary back behind a Pro Bowler.
His numbers were less impressive in 2022, averaging only 3.8 yards per carry and 6.0 yards per reception. Despite 158 touches, he only found the end zone four times. Back in April, as it became apparent the Browns weren’t interested, Cleveland.com also reported that the word was they believed he was slipping in terms of speed.
The remarkable thing is that Hunt is still only 27 years old. It wasn’t even so long ago that he was one of the rising stars at the position. Granted, he had been playing behind one of the best offensive lines in football, and behind a bruising back who wore defenses down, but one would imagine he should still have something left in the tank.
He only has 1,106 career touches, only topping 200 touches in a season once since 2018. But with other names like Dalvin Cook, Ezekiel Elliott, and Leonard Fournette currently unsigned, should anybody be surprised about who is under contract and who isn’t?
