Chiefs chairman addresses Hunt issue for the first time
Kansas City Chiefs chairman Clark Hunt said he was shocked by security camera footage showing Kareem Hunt shoving and kicking a woman in a Cleveland hotel, and that it was a collective decision by the organization to cut their running back within hours.
In his first comments since the incident nine days ago, the owner also said that the Chiefs were aware of two other offseason incidents involving Kareem Hunt, but not the extent of them.
“We’d had some issues with Kareem not being truthful with what happened that night [in Cleveland] and we really felt in everybody’s interest we head in another direction,” Clark Hunt explained after Kansas City clinched a playoff berth with a 27-24 overtime victory against the Baltimore Ravens.
The other two incidents occurred in January at a Kansas City nightclub and in June at an Ohio resort. No criminal charges were filed in any of the cases.
The league did not hand down any punishment until TMZ Sports posted the security footage from the Cleveland hotel, at which point Kareem Hunt was put on the NFL’s exempt list.
“I don’t think we were necessarily trying to make a statement,” Clark Hunt said. “We just felt like the best thing for the Kansas City Chiefs moving forward was to part ways with Kareem.”
49ers
George Kittle caught an 85-yard touchdown pass on the way to 210 yards receiving and became the first tight end for San Francisco to reach the 1,000-yard milestone. Kittle finished just shy of Shannon Sharpe’s NFL record by a tight end of 214 yards receiving, not having a catch nor as many chances in the second half. Kyle Shanahan pulled aside his star tight end and apologized to Kittle for not getting him more opportunities in the second half to set the NFL record.
Redskins
This was all kinds of embarrassing for Washington, from the offense to the defense to the special teams, from the face-palm penalties, from the numbers on the scoreboard to the thousands of empty seats in the stands. Facing a last-place team that had nothing to play for, coach Jay Gruden’s Redskins dropped their fourth consecutive game to fall below .500 with a 40-16 loss to the New York Giants. Asked whether he’s concerned about the security of his job, Gruden replied: “My job’s in jeopardy every week. So I’ve just got to do the best I can, get these guys ready to go, and we’ll continue to do that.”
Packers
Aaron Rodgers threw two touchdown passes and set an NFL record for interceptionfree football, giving him 359 consecutive attempts without an interception to break the league record previously held by New England’s Tom Brady (358 in 2010-11). Green Bay (5-7-1) won its first game under interim head coach Joe Philbin, who took over for the fired Mike McCarthy.
Falcons
Coach Dan Quinn admitted that he has already starting to look at players for next season. “As dark as it is, the men that will get it right here in these next three weeks are the men standing here in this room,” Quinn said. “That’s how you work through it. Just wanting it to get better isn’t a great way to real progress.”
Ravens
Fullback and defensive lineman Patrick Ricard apologized Sunday for racist and homophobic tweets made six years ago, when he was “a 16-year-old kid in high school who clearly made bad choices.” The deleted tweets from 2011 and 2012 surfaced late Saturday night, and Ricard was a healthy scratch against the Chiefs.