KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Kareem Hunt never expected to walk through the doors of the Kansas City Chiefs’ practice facility again.
So when their erstwhile star running back did just that last week, what struck Hunt first was even more unexpected.
“Honestly, my first thought was the building smelled the same,” he said Wednesday. “Brought back so many memories.”
Mostly good. Some bad, including the way things ended six years ago.
Hunt had become one of the NFL’s premier players by his second season in the league, and he was helping a team led for the first time by quarterback Patrick Mahomes in pursuit of the playoffs. In late November 2018, though, video surfaced that showed Hunt kicking a woman in the hall of a Cleveland hotel, and while no charges were filed when she stopped cooperating with authorities, the Chiefs swiftly and decisively released him, putting Hunt’s future as a professional football player in peril.