Kareem Hunt will try to stop his former team from making another trip to the Super Bowl on Sunday. (Joshua Gunter, Cleveland.com)
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Editor's note: Tony Grossi is a Cleveland Browns analyst for TheLandOnDemand.com and 850 ESPN Cleveland.
Who could have imagined how this turned out?
On Sunday, Kareem Hunt returns to Arrowhead Stadium for the first time since the Kansas City Chiefs cut him after a video surfaced in 2018 that proved he lied to them about shoving and kicking a 19-year-old woman in a downtown Cleveland apartment complex.
The NFL rushing champion for the Chiefs as a rookie in 2017 will be wearing brown and orange, colors of his home-town Browns team, in the AFC divisional playoff game, trying to block his former team from repeating as Super Bowl champions.
Hunt is one-half of the Browns’ unique backfield Dynamic Duo whose indomitable spirit epitomizes the unstoppable force the team has become.
It was on display in the epic AFC wild-card victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers, in which Hunt ran through defenders on one touchdown and dragged three into the end zone on another. Afterwards, Baker Mayfield said Hunt ran “pissed off.”
Before the night turned to dawn, Hunt posted an Instagram video in which he said, “Next week’s personal.”
“I just mean it is a big game,” Hunt said Wednesday, declining to comment specifically on the Chiefs’ decision to cut him for his transgressions. “I came in with guys over there. Bragging rights. Travis [Kelce], Pat [Mahomes] and all of those guys, we are buddies. This is my first time playing against some of my best friends in the NFL. It is definitely going to be for bragging rights and stuff like that for the long run with my guys.”
Who could have imagined it?
Well, Hunt, for one.
Nick Chubb, the other half of the Dynamic Duo, confided, “Kareem talked about this game all year like he knew it was going to happen. He is excited for it. I am excited for him. I am excited to watch him go out there and play. He is ready for it.”
Buddy boy
A person of interest in the Kareem Hunt story who won’t be in Arrowhead on Sunday is John Dorsey.
Dorsey is an unavoidable storyline in Sunday’s game because he helped build both teams as each’s general manager before his successors made the finishing touches. Dorsey took a chance on Hunt when he selected him in the third round of the 2017 draft.
Hunt was a star at the University of Toledo, but a two-game suspension for violating team rules may have shied away some teams. Dorsey already had a reputation in Kansas City of giving chances to other draft picks with “character issues,” including cornerback Marcus Peters and wide receiver Tyreek Hill.
Dorsey wouldn’t even last to see Hunt lead the league in rushing his rookie season. He was shockingly fired by Chiefs owner Clark Hunt in June, two months after drafting Hunt. After the fact, insiders cited Dorsey’s blind spot for talented players with questionable character traits as one of the reasons for his demise.
By the time Hunt was cut by the Chiefs on Nov. 30, 2018, Dorsey resurfaced with the Browns and was in the midst of upgrading their roster through a flurry of trades and pinpoint draft picks.
Among his acquisitions in his first season on the job were players who form the nucleus of what became the Browns’ first playoff team in 18 years – Mayfield, receiver Jarvis Landry, Chubb and cornerback Denzel Ward.
Into this burgeoning mix Dorsey added Hunt in a daring and controversial signing in February of 2019. At the time, Hunt's football future was dismal. No team would touch him. For the second time in Hunt’s brief pro career, Dorsey was there to save him.
With Hunt suspended by the NFL for the first eight games, Dorsey knew he had to help Hunt turn his life around to save him from a permanent ban.
With the blessing of owners Dee and Jimmy Haslam, Dorsey set up the support system for Hunt to receive counseling sessions and behavior therapy. Hunt made visits to schools to preach to kids about avoiding bad decisions. In May of that year, Dorsey and then-coach Freddie Kitchens attended Hunt’s baptism in a Baptist church in the city’s Glenville neighborhood as a show of their unflagging support.
“He is another person who has been in my corner and gave me two opportunities honestly – he drafted me and brought me back to Cleveland,” Hunt said of Dorsey. “Now, I am back home in Cleveland. God has a plan for me, and it obviously is to be here.”
Where’s John?
The comeback Hunt has made in life includes a two-year contract extension for $13 million that binds him to the Browns through 2022. The deal was offered in September not by Dorsey but by his successor, Andrew Berry.
It came months after a traffic stop by Rocky River police in January. In Hunt’s vehicle was found a small amount of weed and an open bottle of vodka. Dash cam video showed Hunt confessing to police that he was stressed about the Chiefs, his former team, winning the Super Bowl without him.
“It hurts my soul,” Hunt said on the video. “I’ve been fighting a lot of [stuff]. It still hurts me to this day.”
So now Hunt has the chance to reach a Super Bowl with his new team, but only if he can help it beat his old team.
“My biggest goal coming into the NFL was to win a Super Bowl before I retire,” he said. “I never had the chance to win a national title in college or anything like that, so the Super Bowl has been on my mind since I got drafted to Kansas City. They were able to get that goal, which they deserve. That is a good program over there, a good football team and good people.”
Where will Dorsey be on Sunday? The man who helped build both teams and turned Hunt in the right direction still lives in Northeast Ohio. Dorsey was not answering media queries this week.
“You learn from the past, live in the present and build for the future. That’s how I kind of do my thing,” Dorsey often said.
As Hunt prepares for the biggest game of his career, Dorsey is on retainer reportedly as a consultant for the Philadelphia Eagles.
He was mentioned by media as a candidate for several general manager jobs. But four have been filled in the last week and three are still open, and Dorsey has not been formally interviewed for any of them.
Who could have imagined two years ago that when the lives of the Chiefs and Hunt would intertwine again, that Dorsey would be the one out of a job?