Kareem AJ Hunt (born August 6, 1995) is an American football running back for the Cleveland Browns of the National Football League (NFL). He played college football at Toledo and was drafted by the Kansas City Chiefs in the third round of the 2017 NFL Draft. As a rookie in 2017, he led the NFL in rushing yards and was selected to the Pro Bowl. In November 2018, after video of a violent incident involving Hunt was released, he was placed on the commissioner's exempt list and released by the Chiefs. Hunt attended South High School in Willoughby, Ohio, where he played for the Rebels football team. He rushed for 2,519 yards and 39 touchdowns as a junior and 2,685 yards and 44 touchdowns as a senior. Hunt was rated by Rivals.com as a three-star recruit and committed to the University of Toledo to play college football.As a freshman at Toledo in 2013, Hunt played in 12 games with three starts and rushed for 866 yards on 137 carries with six touchdowns. He had a strong four-game stretch in the season with 127 rushing yards and two touchdowns against Navy, 114 rushing yards and a touchdown against Bowling Green, 168 rushing yards and two rushing touchdowns against Eastern Michigan, and 186 rushing yards and a touchdown against Buffalo. As a sophomore, he played in 10 games, missing three due to an injury. In the 10 games that he appeared in, he rushed for at least 101 yards in all of them. He rushed for 1,631 yards on 205 carries with 16 touchdowns.[10][11] He was the MVP of the 2015 GoDaddy Bowl victory over Arkansas State after rushing for 271 yards and five touchdowns, which tied an NCAA record with Barry Sanders.
Hunt was suspended for the first two games of his junior year in 2015 due to a violation of team rules.[13] He returned for the third game, but was injured during the game and missed the next two games. Overall, in the 2015 season, he finished with 973 rushing yards and 12 rushing touchdowns. In 2016, Hunt played all 13 games, leading the MAC in both rush attempts (262) and yards (1,475), including 200 rushing yards in the loss at #14 Western Michigan. His 4,945 career rushing yards broke Chester Taylor's school record, and was third all time in MAC conference history. In addition, he holds career school records for yards per rush (6.3, with a minimum of 100 rushes), and total yards from scrimmage (5,500).
