Browns give controversial Hunt a shot
One of the more lovable teams in football is taking on one of the sport’s more loathsome players.
The Browns signed Kareem Hunt, the running back who was cut by the Chiefs this past season after video surfaced of him attacking a woman.
Hunt was starring in his second season in the league, chalking up 14 total touchdowns in 11 games, before the video was published Nov. 30, in which he pushed and kicked a woman in a Cleveland hotel in February. The 23-yearold will not become the league’s next Ray Rice, the former Ravens running back who never made it back into the NFL after video surfaced of him hitting his then fiancée in an Atlantic City hotel elevator.
“I would like to once again apologize for my actions last year,” Hunt said in a statement Monday. “What I did was wrong and inexcusable. That is not the man I was raised to be, and I’ve learned a great deal from that experience and certainly should have been more truthful about it after the fact. I’m extremely grateful that [GM] John Dorsey, [owners] Dee and Jimmy Haslam and the Cleveland Browns organization are granting me the opportunity to earn their trust and represent their organization in the best way possible on and off the field.”
Hunt will team with Baker Mayfield in an offense that now looks more imposing. He still is on NFL commissioner Roger Goodell’s exempt list and will likely be suspended. Dorsey originally drafted Hunt when he was with Kansas City.
“My relationship and interaction with Kareem since 2016 in college 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,” Dorsey said in the statement. “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.”