Kansas City Chiefs: Can Kareem Hunt top his rookie performance
By Chris Taylor
Kareem Hunt’s rookie season was a special one. With a new offensive system in place, will the Kansas City Chiefs star be able to top his rookie year?
There is little doubt that what Kansas City Chiefs running back Kareem Hunt was able to do during his rookie campaign was pretty special. He burst on to the scene in front of a national television audience against the defending champion New England Patriots and the rest of the season was his for the taking.
The third round pick from Toledo started his career on record pace. Kareem Hunt gained at least 100 yards from scrimmage in each of his first seven games, an NFL rookie record. Hunt also led the league in rushing yards with 1,327 and finished third overall in scrimmage yards with 1,782. Keep in mind that there was a stretch where he only received a handful of carries for the Kansas City Chiefs, as NFL.com‘s game logs show.
The Chiefs have had a lot of moving pieces this offseason, most notably behind center. Alex Smith is now playing in Washington D.C. and Patrick Mahomes now sits behind the wheel.
The majority of those pieces were on the defensive side, nonetheless, this will be a much different looking Chiefs team from previous years or decades. Will Kareem Hunt be able to top or even match his level of production from his rookie season?
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The answer is yes. Barring any significant injuries, Hunt should have a more balanced role this season which will lead to more productivity. Hunt’s sophomore season should include more carries than last season, and at the same time involve him more into the passing game.
Last season Alex Smith showed off his arm, proving that he could throw it deep if he wanted to. Opposing defenses didn’t necessarily give him the respect he needed. The Chiefs still faced a full dose of defense’s stacking the box. Hunt still led the league in rushing yards.
This season, the power of the unknown is on Kansas City’s side. The only defense that has had the pleasure of losing to Mahomes is the Denver Bronco defense. Even so, the offensive scheme will be noticeably different. As of right now, no defense knows how to plan against a Mahomes led offense. That task will take the better part of this season at the least, to Kansas City’s benefit.
Kareem Hunt will have the luxury of space in 2018. Defenses will be too afraid to stack the box with Patrick Mahomes behind center. Look for most teams to keep an extra guy in the secondary when facing Kansas City.
These theories would mean Hunt’s numbers should go up. His yards per rush would be better, at least that’s what science tells us. He would have further to travel before making initial contact in certain situations. His number of touches may go down on average, but there should be a significant amount of yardage gained.
Understand that these things wouldn’t fall into place if the run blocking happened to be worse than last season. If Mahomes was to struggle, then defenses would slowly creep back up to the line of scrimmage. Any significant injuries would take their toll as well.
If Mahomes is successful, injuries stay at a minimum, and the run blocking stays afloat, then Hunt should have a season better than his rookie performance, which was incredible.