Browns sign troubled running back Hunt
CLEVELAND — The Cleveland Browns’ signing of Kareem Hunt once again shines a spotlight somewhere other than the team’s on-field performance.
Hunt, who was released 2 1/2 months ago by Kansas City after a video surfaced showing the star running back pushing and kicking a woman, signed with Cleveland on Monday.
Hunt was placed on the NFL’s commissioner’s exempt list hours before the Chiefs released him, a move that drew public support after he was seen in a physical altercation with the woman last February during an argument in the lobby of a downtown hotel where he stayed.
He was in his second season with Kansas City and was one of the team’s best players. He led the NFL in rushing as a rookie in 2017.
The Browns are now giving the 23-year-old, who is from Cleveland, a chance to restart his career, though he still could be suspended by the league under its personal conduct policy for the incident and two others that surfaced after he was released by the Chiefs. Hunt has not been charged with a crime. An NFL investigation is ongoing.
And the Browns, coming off a tumultuous 7-8-1 season that followed an 0-16 record in 2017 — with a new coach after Hue Jackson was fired midseason in 2018 — are creating headlines by giving a player a second chance even as the NFL has not yet decided Hunt’s status.
Browns general manager John Dorsey drafted Hunt while working for Kansas City and said their relationship was an “important part of this decision-making process.”
“But we then did extensive due diligence with many individuals, including clinical professionals, to have a better understanding of the person he is today and whether it was prudent to sign him,” said Dorsey, who was Kansas City’s GM from 2013 to ’16. “There were two important factors: One is that Kareem took full responsibility for his egregious actions and showed true remorse and secondly, just as importantly, he is undergoing and is committed to necessary professional treatment and a plan that has been clearly laid out.”
Dorsey went on to say the Browns “fully understand and respect the complexity of questions and issues in signing a player with Kareem’s history and do not condone his actions. Given what we know about Kareem through our extensive research, we believe he deserves a second chance but certainly with the understanding that he has to go through critical and essential steps to become a performing member of this organization, aside from what the NFL determines from their ongoing investigation.”