The Cleveland Browns Sign Kareem Hunt

Kareem Hunt is no longer out of the NFL, after being released in November by the Kansas City Chiefs when video of him rushing and kicking a woman emerged. The Cleveland Browns announced today that they have signed Kareem Hunt to a deal.

John Dorsey was the GM for the Kansas City Chiefs when the team drafted Kareem Hunt out of Toledo in 2017. Dorsey would be fired shortly thereafter and was gone before Hunt actually played in a game, but he has that initial relationship. Here’s Dorsey’s statement:

Kareem Hunt signing with someone was inevitable, even though no team claimed him off waivers in the immediate aftermath of the news. He wasn’t going to be out of the league forever, in a league where plenty of other players with past incidents of domestic violence or other assaults are playing. It was a matter of which team would take the short-term PR hit when no football was being played, to add a player who can make a difference on the field.

The Browns are an interesting team, though, in a couple of senses. Hunt is from the area. The incident that led to his release was in Cleveland, when he was back there last offseason. In addition, it’s a young emerging team that already had Nick Chubb emerge last year as a rookie. It doesn’t seem like the type of team that had to take a chance on Hunt from a football perspective out of desperate need.

Hunt was placed on the Commissioner’s Exempt list immediately last year and has not been removed. He may still now receive a suspension of some length now that he is on a roster. But he will be back in the NFL sometime in the fall of 2019, in the town where he got into trouble in the first place.