Before he addressed the media Monday night, Kareem Hunt reached back into his locker for one final touch: his Halloween mask. If this is it, if he is indeed leaving town, he wanted to go out as the Joker.
Fake smile and all.
To Hunt’s credit, he has been a good citizen since requesting a trade during training camp. The Browns to this point haven’t been willing to pay him and haven’t been willing to use him much. They have his replacement, Jerome Ford, in the building already. The whole thing has left Hunt stuck in purgatory with little leverage to get anything he wants.
Advertisement
At least against the Bengals, some of the touches returned. The Browns temporarily salvaged any hope for a second-half rally to their season with a 32-13 win Monday against Cincinnati, the defending AFC champions and yet somehow the one team the Browns have little trouble beating.
Losing to the Bengals and falling to 2-6 would’ve ended the season at the bye week and been grounds to knock down the stadium and expand the airport. There would be nothing left to watch and nothing to play for until Deshaun Watson returns for the final six games. At least now at 3-5, the Browns still have a faint pulse. Hunt is part of the reason.
His 11 carries, four catches and 72 total yards Monday came as his name continues to swirl in trade rumors before Tuesday’s 4 p.m. trade deadline. The Athletic’s Zac Jackson already reported that the Browns have discussed Hunt with the Eagles. The Bills and Rams also make a lot of sense.
The closer we get to 4 p.m. (ET) Tuesday, the harder it’s becoming for Hunt to hide his true desires. He sounds like a man eager to move on.
Does he want to be traded?
“I’m down for whatever,” he said through the Joker mask. “I’m a football player, and it’s a business. I’m ready to do whatever they decide with me.”
Does he like the position he’s in here?
“I love my teammates,” he said.
Has he asked for a trade?
“I’ve already done that. Earlier in camp,” he said. I asked him later if he’s gone back and reiterated his stance to the team in recent weeks.
“I don’t really talk to them,” he said.

It’s only fair to point out that the Browns are the team that resurrected Hunt’s career. They brought him back into the league in 2019 when no one else would touch him after his off-field problems with the Chiefs. This Browns regime did not make the decision to bring him back, but general manager Andrew Berry is the one who gave him a two-year extension in 2020.
Advertisement
Given where he was when they signed him and the extension they gave him, the Browns owe him nothing. Further, dealing him could prove difficult exactly because of his performance Monday night.
The Browns need picks, particularly after all the draft capital they shipped to Houston in the Watson deal. But giving Hunt away for a fifth-round pick or lower makes little sense. They’d likely receive a compensatory pick in that range or higher if they’re willing to wait an extra year to receive it.
For as bad as it’s been at times this season, the Browns enter the bye 2-1 in the division and only two games behind Baltimore for first place. Given the erratic play within the AFC North this season, it certainly isn’t an insurmountable gap. Hunt on this roster gives the Browns a better chance to win than a low-round pick next year.
Hunt provides options until he doesn’t. It seems highly unlikely at this point Hunt is back in a Browns jersey next season, but stranger things have happened in the NFL. What if Nick Chubb suffers a catastrophic injury next week or the week after? How would the depth chart at running back look then?
If a team is willing to part with a third-round pick or higher, the Browns will have a difficult decision to make. That seems unlikely. When the Jets needed help at running back after Breece Hall’s knee injury, they were willing to part only with a sixth-round pick for James Robinson. Christian McCaffrey cost the 49ers second-, third- and fourth-rounders in next year’s draft, plus a fifth-rounder in 2024. There was a time when Hunt was in McCaffrey’s class, but persuading a team to pay a premium based on game video from 2018 is quite a stretch.
For a variety of reasons (injuries, usage), Hunt has produced 982 total yards and nine touchdowns since the start of last season. Those are the numbers teams will use to submit their bids, not his production from when he was with Kansas City. Hunt’s numbers since the start of last season can’t even match Robinson’s production, so just forget about McCaffrey’s price.
Advertisement
Ideally, the Browns would love to protect the asset and get real value for Hunt before losing him for just a compensatory pick. Hunt would love an opportunity to get more touches over the second half of the season and create real value heading into his free agency this summer. He’d better keep the fake-smile mask. Neither seems likely.
As Hunt was leaving the locker room late Monday night, he stopped momentarily and started to turn back.
“I feel like I’m forgetting something,” he told a Browns staff member. Then he changed his mind and kept walking.
“I have my chain,” he said. “Everything else is replaceable.”
Spoken like a man ready to leave it all behind.
(Top photo of Kareem Hunt and Vonn Bell: David Dermer / USA Today)
ncG1vNJzZmismJqutbTLnquim16YvK57knBsaWxoaXxzfJFrZmppX2V%2BcLjLqLCdZZuWv6axzGafrqakYq%2Bzu9anqmg%3D