Kareem Hunt: How Chiefs won the NFL Draft and perhaps much more
by Maurice Barksdale
6 days ago
Kansas City Chiefs running back Kareem Hunt is one of the breakout stars of the season. But how did the Chiefs find this impact player in the third round of the draft?
The secret to winning at the NFL Draft is to get the most for less. The top of the draft is where the perceived best talent is supposed to be. The system is set up for a combination of the biggest, fastest and most explosive athletes to go to the worst teams in the league. But what of a diamond in the rough like Kareem Hunt?
There are times when some of the best players in the NFL Draft slips through the cracks. Only good scouting and instincts on the part of personnel managers can find them. Kansas City Chiefs running back Kareem Hunt is a prime example of this.
Hunt is not only an instant impact player for the Chiefs. He’s one of the major reasons they are the only unbeaten team left in the NFL. Through four games Kareem Hunt is leading the league in rushing with 502 yards and averaging an amazing 7.4 yards per carry.
He also has proven to be a good receiver out of the backfield with 13 receptions, averaging 12.1 yards per catch and he has 6 TD’s on the season. So how did a player like this slide to the third round of the draft where the Chiefs traded up to get him?
Why wasn’t Kareem Hunt taken sooner?
Probably because he played at Toledo instead of at a power 5 school. Sometimes scouts tend to look down on players from the smaller conferences. However, I think going to Toledo is one of the major reasons why Kareem Hunt is so good.
Because every game he played, every player on the opposing defense was geared up to stop him. Not that it was 11 on 1, because it wasn’t. But you can see by the way he runs that Hunt’s instincts as a runner were forged by constantly dealing with multiple tacklers at once and defeating them. 4,945 yards at Toledo is proof of this. In spite of facing tremendous odds, Kareem Hunt excelled anyway.
When I watch NFL defenses try to stop Hunt, it’s like they can’t believe what’s he’s doing to them. Hunt is not only quick but extremely powerful. On several occasions I saw Washington Redskins defenders have to leave the game with minor injuries after trying to tackle Kareem Hunt.
That’s not a knock on those defenders, it’s just a testament to how strong Hunt is. And yet every team in the league had a chance to draft him but only the Chiefs did. They knew precisely where he would go in the draft and traded up to get him because they knew he would be a steal for them.
Now the Chiefs are reaping the benefits for taking a player at a point in the draft where no other team had. They have a potential superstar on their hands and Hunt has helped elevate the Chiefs from just a playoff team into a Super Bowl contender.
The play of quarterback Alex Smith, Travis Kelce and linebacker Justin Houston has as well. And yes the Chiefs would still be good without Hunt, but look how much better they are with him. This is a masterful job of winning at the NFL Draft by the Kansas City Chiefs and kudos to their personnel department. [Reply]
Originally Posted by OldSchool:
Why did they fire him exactly? Was never really clear to me. Was it money on the extension? Was it ego?
We do not have a definitive answer on that.
Rumors are that Hunt and the Chiefs were growing weary of him destroying the Chiefs' salary cap, and making a ton of controversial personnel decisions without clearing the moves with Hunt or Reid first. The Chiefs had rumored to be sick of his lack of communication and then the Eric Berry contract fiasco arrived, and Dorsey was rumored to want to let Berry walk. The Chiefs, in particular Clark Hunt, hated that, and Hunt himself had to intervene to keep Berry in the building.
Cutting Maclin was the last straw, so the rumor goes. It incensed both Hunt and Reid.
Shrug. It's all just whispers, we really have no idea. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Direckshun:
There are times when some of the best players in the NFL Draft slips through the cracks. Only good scouting and instincts on the part of personnel managers can find them. Kansas City Chiefs running back Kareem Hunt is a prime example of this.
Kareem Hunt is more accurately a prime example of the Paradox of Skill.
By Reid/Dorsey's own admission, they moved up for Hunt because he was the last man standing in a 'tier' of RBs, but only after they couldn't move up to get Cook. They didn't think Hunt would be a superstar or he wouldn't have been the #2 back behind Ware (and they wouldn't have risked losing him so they could take a project like Kpassagnon).
But the Paradox of Skill holds that as the overall skill level of a group rises, simple luck becomes more and more critical to the ultimate outcome.
NFL GM's these days are damn good. Amateur scouting is better than it's ever been. The tools these guys have at their disposal and the money/resources that goes into unearthing every bit of information about the players is unprecedented. The vast majority of NFL front offices are extremely qualified.
And that being the case, being truly great at drafts anymore is largely a product of dumb luck. You have to be a part of the group of highly skilled GMs to put yourself in the position to stumble into that luck, to be sure (bad GM's don't get lucky often). But there are so many good GMs that the odds of one organization just being flat out obviously better than others are pretty remote. [Reply]
Originally Posted by DJ's left nut:
Kareem Hunt is more accurately a prime example of the Paradox of Skill.
By Reid/Dorsey's own admission, they moved up for Hunt because he was the last man standing in a 'tier' of RBs, but only after they couldn't move up to get Cook. They didn't think Hunt would be a superstar or he wouldn't have been the #2 back behind Ware (and they wouldn't have risked losing him so they could take a project like Kpassagnon).
But the Paradox of Skill holds that as the overall skill level of a group rises, simple luck becomes more and more critical to the ultimate outcome.
NFL GM's these days are damn good. Amateur scouting is better than it's ever been. The tools these guys have at their disposal and the money/resources that goes into unearthing every bit of information about the players is unprecedented. The vast majority of NFL front offices are extremely qualified.
And that being the case, being truly great at drafts anymore is largely a product of dumb luck. You have to be a part of the group of highly skilled GMs to put yourself in the position to stumble into that luck, to be sure (bad GM's don't get lucky often). But there are so many good GMs that the odds of one organization just being flat out obviously better than others are pretty remote.
I know exactly what you're saying and largely agree with it. However, in this case, trading up to draft this particular guy appears to be more than luck; they wanted THIS player and weren't content with picking the best player available at their slotted selection.
Luck is certainly a significant element of the equation, but I think moving up to select a particular player moves the action further away from the influence of luck. [Reply]
It really made up for using our #1 pick on a player who won't see the field until 2019. You don't get HOF caliber running backs in the 3rd round very often and it completely offset our first 2 picks this year. Chiefs got the best of both worlds, the future QB and an immediate impact player. Looking back on Dorsey and Eric Berry, it's almost prophetic that he wanted to let him walk. We are spending 1/6 of our defensive salary on a player that only gave us 1 game. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Pitt Gorilla:
I know exactly what you're saying and largely agree with it. However, in this case, trading up to draft this particular guy appears to be more than luck; they wanted THIS player and weren't content with picking the best player available at their slotted selection.
Luck is certainly a significant element of the equation, but I think moving up to select a particular player moves the action further away from the influence of luck.
I think they wanted about 4 players (along with Cook, Kamara and Mixon) and after the other 3 were gone, they saw one guy left in that particular tier and moved up.
They wanted a RB and didn't want to be left standing there alone when the music stopped so they made an aggressive move. And yes, they absolutely deserve credit for that. But that's where skill and luck align.
Like I said, you have to be a good front office to be in a position to capitalize on good luck and the Chiefs front office is unquestionably a very good one. But there's a high degree of luck involved in getting a superstar in the 3rd round as well, especially a superstar that you took after a guy that's unlikely to see meaningful snaps this year. They also went RB hunting in a draft class that looks like it may be historically great for RBs. Even apart from Hunt you have Fournette looking legit, Cook looked great, Kamara's going to be a stud IMO, Foreman's looked damn good in limited run and will have that starting gig by year's end, IMO. Carson looked fantastic in Seattle. Even guys like Cohen, Gallman and Jones look like they may be very good players all the way down to someone like Breida who's SPARQ score is unreal and may just be the right opportunity away from being a 1,000 yard back in his own right.
I mean hell, would it be a complete shock if 2 years from now a full 1/3 of the starting RBs in the NFL came from this draft class? It's a crazy class for ballcarriers when a record-setting back like Perine isn't likely to be one of the top 10 RBs in the class.
The Chiefs targeted a position and when the board wasn't falling exactly as they'd hoped, they made a move to get a great ballplayer - credit is due. But they targeted a position in a comically deep draft for same (which was not expected) and in the process got a guy that was better than even their most optimistic projections.
Seriously - you wanna talk luck; I think the 49ers are going to LOVE Breida. Small school kid that showed out big time against upper level competition. Sub 4.4 speed, 20+ reps, great balance/power. The only question is vision since he came from an option program but every now and again it flashes. It's hard to say if it's something he doesn't have or something he didn't get many chances to demonstrate due to a funky scheme (kinda like Mahomes and his ability to get to his 3rd read).
I've never denied being a measureables/SPARQ whore when it comes to skill positions (that's why I loved me some Robert Davis in this draft...to seemingly no avail) and this guy absolutely destroys everyone in his SPARQ score.
He wasn't considered a top 25 RB in this class. It's just a silly, silly deep draft class for runningbacks and not one that I think many pundits saw coming. [Reply]
Originally Posted by jLoy88:
It really made up for using our #1 pick on a player who won't see the field until 2019. You don't get HOF caliber running backs in the 3rd round very often and it completely offset our first 2 picks this year. Chiefs got the best of both worlds, the future QB and an immediate impact player. Looking back on Dorsey and Eric Berry, it's almost prophetic that he wanted to let him walk. We are spending 1/6 of our defensive salary on a player that only gave us 1 game.
