4 Teams Who Should Be Jealous of Chiefs' Kareem Hunt Success
By Jovan Alford
Kansas City Chiefs starting running back Isiah Pacheco suffered a fractured right fibula after their Week 2 win against the Cincinnati Bengals. The Chiefs placed Pacheco on injured reserve, leaving a noticeable void in their backfield.
Kansas City didn’t panic about the loss and instead, brought back veteran running back Kareem Hunt. Hunt was a free agent this offseason after playing well in 2023 with the Cleveland Browns. It was shocking to see the veteran sitting on the open market, given the teams who don’t have the strongest running back rooms.
Hunt was on the Chiefs’ practice squad for Week 3 but was activated in Week 4. He recorded a solid performance against the Los Angeles Chargers (14 carries for 69 yards).
Hunt followed that up with an outstanding game in Week 5 against the New Orleans Saints (27 carries for 102 yards and a touchdown).
Based on his first two performances with the Chiefs this season, Kansas City has hit the lottery, while other teams missed out. Below, we’ll discuss four teams who should be jealous of Hunt’s success this season.
1. Dallas Cowboys
Even though upgrades were available the Cowboys refused to make substantial changes to their running back room this offseason.
Instead, the Cowboys’ brass thought they could get by with Ezekiel Elliott, Rico Dowdle, and Deuce Vaughn. Thus far, this running back trio hasn’t been special and is one of the worst in the league.
This season, Dallas’ ground attack is ranked 31st in the league (82 yards per game). Dowdle leads the team with 221 rushing yards on 54 carries, averaging 4.1 yards per carry.
As for Elliott, he’s been mildly disappointing in his return to Dallas. He has 98 yards on 30 carries while contributing six receptions (nine targets) for 36 yards.
Hunt has only played in two games with the Chiefs and has more rushing yards than Elliott (171). He also has a higher yards-per-carry average than both RBs (4.2). It’s a smaller sample size, but it's noticeable.
The Chiefs running back would be a much better option in Dallas than Elliott as he even showed last season in Cleveland that he could be a red-zone threat.