NFL teams, at least for now, aren’t interested in taking on the Kareem Hunt circus. He passed through today’s waiver process unclaimed.
TMZ, of course, on Friday published a video showing Hunt shoving and kicking a woman in a Cleveland hotel. And there are reports that Hunt has been involved in multiple other incidents. One report says a man charges Hunt punched him in the face at an Ohio resort in June.
William Joy of KMBC says that a police report from January says that a man alleges that he was assaulted by Hunt and a former member of the team in January, after team’s playoff loss against Tennessee.
The NFL is looking into the various incidents and presumably will announce some kind of suspension in the offseason. NFL Network reporter Ian Rapoport says he’s been told that the suspension could be “more than the baseline six-game suspension.” Rapoport also reported that multiple teams at least considered submitting a claim for Hunt.
Sounds like Hunt won’t be playing until October or November of 2019 (and that’s assuming he can find a team willing to take him on). Many teams probably won’t be interested in taking on the negative publicity that would come with signing him.
When Hunt is cleared to return, he’ll be an unrestricted free agent – free to sign with any team for whatever he can convince them to pay.
Ray Rice missed almost all of the 2014 season after a domestic violence incident. He was 28 in 2015 and was unable to ever convince a team to sign him.
Many other players have faced allegations of misconduct off the field and have been given second chances, including Michael Vick, Jameis Winston, Ben Roethlisberger, Joe Mixon, Frank Clark, Tyreek Hill, Adrian Peterson and LeSean McCoy.
I would expect that Hunt will sign somewhere and will be a starting running back in the second half of the 2019 season.
—Ian Allan