Kareem Hunt suits-up Sunday for the Chiefs. What does the context of his return say about our program?

Kareem Hunt // Photo Courtesy of Yahoo! Sports

Content warning: This story includes a discussion of abuse.

The KC skyline is illuminated in red. A faint aroma of grill smoke mixed with dead leaves permeates the air. An eye cannot wander without falling on a passerby wearing a 15 or an 87. In this relatively new era of a successful Chiefs team, gamedays have become close to sacred for Kansas Citians. Athletic accomplishments of consistent AFC championships and Super Bowl wins have created a beaming shared pride throughout the city.

But when this same team displays a blatant pattern of falling on the wrong side of both ambiguous and unambiguous moral dilemmas, should their fanbase be responsible for shared accountability? 

In 2017, shortly before the Chiefs made the transition from lovable underdogs to hated champions, rookie Kareem Hunt was drafted as a running back. Hunt proved his worth to the offense quickly, earning a plethora of honors in his first season. These honors included “NFL Offensive Rookie of the Month,” “NFL Offensive Player of the month,“ and the 2017 NFL Rushing Title. It was safe to say that Hunt was an important piece in Andy Reid’s plan to create a Super Bowl-worthy team, until a disturbing video was released in November 2018. 

This video revealed an altercation between Hunt and a 19-year-old woman, Abigail Ottinger, in a Cleveland hotel hallway. The violent footage showed Hunt shoving, pushing, and kicking Ottinger, even after she had already fallen to the ground. Hunt had been questioned about the event months prior but had lied about it until the video was discovered.

The Chiefs have a history of being incredibly lenient about players’ off-field behavior, but the line is drawn at dishonesty. The indisputable record of Hunt’s abusive actions against his own word led to his expulsion from the organization on Nov. 30, 2018. In an interview with Lisa Salters days afterward, Hunt expressed a great amount of remorse—Well, mainly remorse for himself and his team. “I’m extremely embarrassed because of that video,“ Hunt professed.

Luckily for Hunt, the NFL has a habit of circulating problematic players around to different teams rather than removing them from their coveted position on the field. For the next five seasons, he played for the Cleveland Browns, where his rushing yards and production jumped up and down throughout the years. In the 2023 season, Hunt recorded 411 rushing yards, a pitiful drop from his rookie season’s 1,327 yards. Just as Hunt headed towards the dreaded trope of stunted early career momentum leading to mediocrity’s abyss, the Red Kingdom decided to give him a chance at redemption. 

The act of re-signing Hunt seems to have been made less as a testament to his personal growth and more as a result of the Chiefs’ star RB Isiah Pacheco’s ankle injury. A gap in the offense seems to rewrite a history of abuse into something acceptable. If Hunt’s actions were egregious enough for him to be booted in 2018, what has changed since? According to both Reid and Mahomes, it all has to do with second chances. 

“I think people deserve a second chance if they’ve done something to work on the first part of it,“ Reid said. Taken out of context, this quote could be coming from a coach who re-signed a player with one too many game-losing fumbles. Mahomes responded to the issue in a similarly cavalier manor, stating, “Everybody has friends that make mistakes—and obviously some are bigger than others—but, at the same time, you want to make the person better, and when you see them taking the right steps to become a better person for themselves, their family, and the rest of the society.“ It has yet to be described how Hunt has gone about this supposed personal growth other than changing uniforms and accepting checks from a different organization. 

Unfortunately, these platitudes regarding players’ off-the-field behavior are all too familiar within this team. Their track record of employing players with abuse allegations and convictions is disturbing, even for NFL standards. Wide receiver Tyreek Hill was drafted in 2016 despite charges alleging that he abused his eight-week pregnant girlfriend. The allegations claimed that Hill choked her and punched her in the stomach. Later on, in 2019, Hill was under investigation for battery regarding his 3-year-old son’s broken arm. Although Hill was temporarily suspended from the team, he was back in time to revel in the glory of 2020’s Super Bowl victory.

And a Super Bowl ring later, many seem to have forgotten Hill’s unsettling past.

More recently, punter Matt Araiza was signed by the Chiefs for the 2024 season. Araiza had previously been released from the Buffalo Bills following being named in a gang rape lawsuit. The lawsuit alleged that a 17-year-old high school student had been intoxicated at an off-campus San Diego State Halloween party in 2021, where she was allegedly raped by Araiza and four other men. Araiza claimed that he had consensual sex with the plaintiff, who he believed was eighteen. He was not charged by the San Diego DA for the alleged crime. Araiza filed a countersuit against the plaintiff for defamation but agreed to drop the case in order to be removed from her lawsuit. The plaintiff’s lawyer, Dan Gilleon, stated to The San Diego Union-Tribune that “she simply cannot afford to defend herself.“ Gilleon continued, “Plus, she has been beat down by Araiza’s PR campaign and is frankly over it.“ Araiza currently faces no charges and will continue his NFL career, currently in our city.

The ongoing blasé attitude surrounding severe allegations of violence is not only an issue within the Chiefs organization but within the NFL as a whole. Domestic violence charges in the NFL account for 48% of violent crime arrests, compared to the national average of 21%. Middlesex University Criminology Dept. conducted a study in 2023 of 117 NFL arrests between 2000-2019 due to allegations of domestic battery, domestic assault, domestic violence, and sexual assault. The study revealed that only 21 of these arrests resulted in a conviction. This is the equivalent of about a 17.9% conviction rate. The leader of the study, Dr. Sailofsky, reflected on his research by stating, “I don’t think the answer is everybody should go to prison or suffer major consequences as soon as there is an allegation because this is a complicated issue.“ Sailofsky continued, “My problem is—who suffers the consequences and who doesn’t because it is evidently not based on the facts of the case and the victims.“ A complete database of NFL arrests can be found here. 

The Chiefs’ stance on domestic violence does not come across as victim-focused, but unsurprisingly and disappointingly player-focused. “At the end of the day, I just root for the person to keep becoming a better and better person, and football is secondary, but I’m glad to have him back and in the building,“ Mahomes stated regarding Hunt’s return.

KC’s beloved quarterback is right about one thing—football should be secondary, secondary to holding one accountable for one’s actions, and not secondary to making sure an old teammate gets a redemption arc. The message being sent to their female fanbase by re-signing Hunt is crystal clear: facing abuse pales in importance to running a ball down a field. The age-old question of “Would forgiveness come this quickly if it happened to your sister? Mother? Wife? or Daughter?“ frustratingly enough, may be the only way the team’s leaders can put this decision in perspective. 

These decisions revolving around employing players with a history of domestic violence become increasingly more bizarre as the NFL’s female fanbase is at an all-time high. In 2021, 45% of the NFL’s fanbase aged under 35 was women, teens, and young girls. Some would argue that the NFL has made strides in the past decade regarding women’s involvement in the league through hiring choices and the creation of the NFL Women’s Forum, but these “strides“ seem more like baby steps when abuse against women is continuously overlooked or forgiven. 

I look forward to watching football every week. I crochet red and yellow sweaters while listening to podcasts analyzing upcoming games. I dance around the house when they win and feel mildly depressed when they lose. I’ve lived in KC my whole life and have never witnessed the city come alive the way it has during our home team’s reign. I can truly say I love the Chiefs, yet it is impossible to ignore the putridly low standards for players’ behavior off the field, especially regarding women. The standards need to be higher. The standards need to be better. The NFL cannot continue being an organization where abuse is normalized. Hiring abusers cannot be the only way a team can win. There are drastic changes to be made, and those changes need to start now.

The combination of football and advocacy for social issues has become a powerful force for awareness and change in recent years. This was seen especially in the 2020 BLM Movement, where many NFL players, including Mahomes, used their platforms to condemn police brutality against the Black Community. The Chief’s numerous philanthropic organizations do incredible work in the KC community, supporting cancer detection, providing resources for veterans, and sustaining the fight against systemic racism. This team has shown they are willing and capable of standing behind important issues, and it’s time for them to stand with victims and survivors of domestic abuse. This stand has to be bigger than a PR statement. First, they need to stop employing abusers, and second, they need to do the work.

A beautiful example of what “doing the work“ can look like is Tampa Bay Buccaneers wide receiver Mike Evans, who created the Evans Family Foundation to work with women and children who have survived domestic abuse. Through his “Catch for Kids“ program, Evans donates one item to families in need for every yard he earns and 13 items for every touchdown. In 2023, this resulted in 1,632 items being donated at the end of the NFL season.

The Chiefs’ current NFL spotlight will not be around forever, so now is an opportune and overdue time to make necessary changes.

Incorporating a program like the example above into the Chiefs’ philanthropy practices could begin to counteract the team’s seeming indifference to domestic violence. More importantly, it would have an incredibly positive impact on survivors right here in the KC community.

Kansas Citians, let’s use our voices to hold our team’s feet to the fire not only in their athletic performance but their morality. They, and we, can do better.