The Bears are the first team to put their toes in the Kareem Hunt waters. He’s got some off-field baggage that’s still being looking into, of course, but he might be a really good fit with their offense.
Matt Nagy, of course, worked with Hunt in Kansas City, so he has an idea of what he’s like at practices and meeting rooms. They’ve worked together for a year.
“As far as the person, with me and coaching him, there were no issues at all,” Nagy said at a press conference yesterday. He described him as “a really, really good kid” who worked hard and was never late to meetings.
Nagy said the team hasn’t discussed signing Hunt in the future, but that he called him to check in on him.
“The only thing I cared about when I talked to him was literally his personal life, how he’s doing,” Nagy said. “It was a good conversation. He sounded good. But that’s it. … There’s more to it than the football, so we talked strictly on that (his personal life).”
GM Ryan Pace isn’t ruling out the team potentially signing Hunt in the future. “As we go into that, obviously there are a lot of things off the field that he’s got to take care of,” he said. “The circumstances are always different (with troubled players). We’re not even there yet. I mean, I know what he is as a player obviously from watching. Matt knows more about him as a person. We’re not even close to that point.”
It sounds to me like the Bears are floating a trial balloon. They’re talking some about their interest or non-interest in Hunt. Now they’ll be able to measure just how much negative reaction such a signing might generate with the local fans and media.
Hunt is currently on the Commissioner’s Exempt list while the league looks in a trio of off-field incidents from last year. TMZ released a video showing him shoving and kicking a woman in Cleveland, and there are charges Hunt was involved in two other assault incidents involving men. He’ll likely be hit with some kind of suspension, then any team will be able to sign him.
He would be an excellent fit with the Bears if they want to take him on. After working with Nagy in Kansas City, he already has an understanding of the team’s offense. And he fits this system a lot better than holdover Jordan Howard.
Howard runs hard; he’s a good banger between the tackles. But in this offense, they prefer running backs with more pass-catching ability. In that regard, Hunt is a lot better than Howard.
Below are the top 30 running backs of the last two years. That’s using standard fantasy scoring – 6 for TDs and 1 for every 10 run/rec yards. Of that group, Hunt has been the most effective pass catcher, averaging 8.5 yards per pass play. That is, including incompletions, he picked up an average of 8.5 yards each time the team passed to him. (This is including 2017, when they had Alex Smith at quarterback.)
Howard, on the other hand, has been the 3rd-worst pass-catching back, averaging only 4.7 yards when they Bears used him as a pass catcher.
I’m not sure that the Bears will sign Hunt. They might decide that he’s not good enough to outweigh the headaches such a signing would entail. But the fit looks very good.
| YARDS PER TARGET (2017-18) | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Player | Tgt | Rec | Yards | Avg |
| Kareem Hunt, KAN | 98 | 79 | 833 | 8.50 |
| Todd Gurley, LAR | 168 | 123 | 1,368 | 8.14 |
| Alvin Kamara, NOR | 205 | 162 | 1535 | 7.49 |
| Duke Johnson, CLE | 155 | 121 | 1,122 | 7.24 |
| James Conner, PIT | 71 | 55 | 497 | 7.00 |
| Tevin Coleman, ATL | 83 | 59 | 575 | 6.93 |
| Frank Gore, 2 tms | 54 | 41 | 369 | 6.83 |
| Derrick Henry, TEN | 35 | 26 | 235 | 6.71 |
| Tarik Cohen, CHI | 162 | 124 | 1,078 | 6.65 |
| Matt Breida, SFO | 67 | 48 | 441 | 6.58 |
| Leonard Fournette, JAX | 74 | 58 | 487 | 6.58 |
| Joe Mixon, CIN | 89 | 73 | 583 | 6.55 |
| Melvin Gordon, LAC | 149 | 108 | 966 | 6.48 |
| Christian McCaffrey, CAR | 237 | 187 | 1,518 | 6.41 |
| Ezekiel Elliott, DAL | 133 | 103 | 836 | 6.29 |
| LeVeon Bell, PIT | 106 | 85 | 655 | 6.18 |
| Adrian Peterson, 3 tms | 45 | 31 | 278 | 6.18 |
| Lamar Miller, HOU | 80 | 61 | 490 | 6.13 |
| Dion Lewis, 2 tms | 102 | 91 | 614 | 6.02 |
| Mark Ingram, NOR | 98 | 79 | 586 | 5.98 |
| Saquon Barkley, NYG | 121 | 91 | 721 | 5.96 |
| Kenyan Drake, MIA | 121 | 85 | 716 | 5.92 |
| Latavius Murray, MIN | 43 | 37 | 244 | 5.67 |
| LeSean McCoy, BUF | 123 | 93 | 686 | 5.58 |
| Marlon Mack, IND | 59 | 38 | 328 | 5.56 |
| Alex Collins, BAL | 57 | 38 | 292 | 5.12 |
| Isaiah Crowell, 2 tms | 70 | 49 | 334 | 4.77 |
| Jordan Howard, CHI | 58 | 43 | 270 | 4.66 |
| Aaron Jones, GNB | 53 | 35 | 228 | 4.30 |
| Carlos Hyde, 2 tms | 104 | 69 | 383 | 3.68 |
—Ian Allan