With their preferred starting quarterback out until December, the Browns will need another strong season from their ground attack. Kareem Hunt should be expected to be part of that effort.
The team has no intention of granting trade request Hunt made earlier this month, according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer’s Mary Kay Cabot (via the Pat McAfee Show). Hunt should be expected to be with the Browns throughout the season, Cabot offers. Considering the former rushing champion’s importance to an offense suddenly featuring questions at quarterback and wide receiver, it is unsurprising the Browns plan to hold onto their high-end backup.
Browns brass has communicated to Hunt they want him in Cleveland this season, Cabot adds. Hunt is going into the final season of the two-year, $12MM extension he signed back in 2020. Since Hunt attempted to stage a hold-in measure upon requesting to be moved — an effort that lasted two days — he has since returned to full practice. Hunt aimed for a Browns extension this offseason but remains tied to a deal that has since been outpaced by several backs.
Deshaun Watson‘s 11-game suspension certainly stands to amplify the Browns’ run game, and Hunt — as one of the best backup running backs in recent NFL history — will be one of its crucial components behind Nick Chubb. The team also has D’Ernest Johnson, whom it re-signed this offseason, crowding the backfield.
Chubb’s three-year, $36.6MM deal is in line with the new going rate for starting backs, but this price range mostly formed after Hunt signed his deal. Since September 2020, Joe Mixon, Alvin Kamara, Dalvin Cook and Aaron Jones signed for between $12MM and $15MM per year. Christian McCaffrey tops the class and the running back market altogether ($16MM AAV). Hunt’s AAV dropped further, to 14th among running backs this offseason, when James Conner, Leonard Fournette and Chase Edmonds signed deals north of $6MM per annum.
Of course, Hunt signed his contract coming off a year in which he served an eight-game suspension in connection with multiple off-field incidents in 2018 — including a video that showed him assaulting a woman — and opted to remain Chubb’s often-used backup rather than trying to see what he could get on the 2021 market. Considering what the 2021 market became — thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic leading to a reduced salary cap — that may have been a good decision. But the contract he is currently tied to is out of step…