KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Kansas City Chiefs running back Kareem Hunt sits in front of his locker, smiling and laughing through the final grind of a demanding season.
The discomfort is way better than a Caribbean vacation.
Just five years ago, Hunt says he refused to watch the Chiefs play the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl LIV. Too painful. Instead, as the Chiefs traveled to Miami, he scheduled a trip to the Bahamas to distract himself on Super Bowl Sunday.
The contrast is telling. Hunt is back in KC now, looking to advance to the same game he once did everything in his power to avoid.
“Coming back here makes it surreal,” Hunt told The Kansas City Star. “I’ve got some closure now.”
And a chance to rewrite his narrative with the Chiefs.
The history: KC drafted Hunt in the third round of the 2017 NFL draft, and he started every game over two productive seasons before video surfaced of an off-field incident where he shoved and kicked a woman.
Hunt later admitted that he was not honest with the Chiefs when they spoke to him about the incident. The Chiefs released him in late November 2018, and Hunt signed with the Cleveland Browns in February 2019 before playing there for five seasons.
Now, Hunt describes having to leave KC as “one of the biggest heartbreaks and moments of my life.”
He doesn’t need to say it. It was captured on video.
During a traffic stop in 2020 — just before KC defeated San Francisco in Super Bowl LIV — dashcam video showed Hunt telling an Ohio police officer, “I should be playing for a freakin’ Super Bowl. It hurts my soul like you wouldn’t understand.”
Hunt set off for the Bahamas not long after.
“It was so tough, just especially going to another team when all you ever wanted to do was play for coach (Andy) Reid,” Hunt said. “I didn’t really want to play nowhere else, so it was hard, just getting that stripped away halfway through the season.”
Hunt said he leaned on his agent, Dan Saffron, and received supportive words from friends back home in Ohio.
Most repeated the same thing to him as the Chiefs made the Super Bowl in the 2019 and 2020 campaigns: “Someday, you’ll get your chance to go to the Super Bowl.”
