The absence of a relentless investigation of Hunt shouldn’t come as any shock. It matches how Roger Goodell & Co. handled the Ray Rice case.
Kareem Hunt apologized to the world, the Kansas City Chiefs organization, his family and his close friends before he finally got around to apologizing to the young woman he shoved and kicked in February — more than seven minutes into Sunday’s interview with ESPN’s Lisa Salters. But just as telling about the assault that ultimately cost Hunt his job was his confirmation that the league had never interviewed him about it.
When it comes to the NFL and violence against women, the question clearly isn’t, “What did they know and when did they know it?”
It’s more like, “What did they want to know and when did they decide they had no choice but to know more?”
Kareem Hunt says he was “in the wrong” for a February incident in which the former Chiefs running back shoved and kicked a woman, video of which surfaced on Friday.
Multiple league executives believe that former Chiefs running back Kareem Hunt will not be claimed on waivers Monday and will become an unrestricted free agent.
By cutting Kareem Hunt after he misled the team, the Chiefs could do more to bolster future NFL investigations than anything the league could do itself.
Hunt talked to the Chiefs after the assault outside his Cleveland hotel residence, and the Chiefs then talked to the league, and then Hunt was free to play 11 games and to help his team emerge as a Super Bowl contender. NFL officials accepted a version of events first supplied by a star running back invested in protecting his career, and then passed along by a team invested in keeping said difference-maker on the field, as part of yet another investigation and decision exposed as disturbing, revealing and woefully inadequate by a video aired on TMZ.
“It should surprise me, but it doesn’t,” said Kathy Redmond, who founded the National Coalition Against Violent Athletes more than 20 years ago. “These are non-investigations. It goes back to willful ignorance, and arrogance and hubris on the part of the NFL. It feels like everything the NFL does is on the surface, and to address PR and the brand they have to protect.”
Yes, the NFL says it did try (and fail) to obtain the video from Cleveland police and the hotel, and did try (and fail) to interview the victim it described in a Sunday statement as a “complainant.” That statement said the league’s “ongoing” investigation will include more attempts to interview “the complainants involved in the incident. It will include a review of the new information that was made public on Friday — which was not available to the NFL previously — as well as further conversations with all parties involved in the incident.”
Those “further conversations” are sure to involve Hunt, who, of course, didn’t have an initial conversation with league investigators. Though the NFL did go hard after Ezekiel Elliott on domestic violence allegations and did hit the Dallas running back last year with a six-game suspension, the absence of a relentless investigation of Hunt shouldn’t come as any shock.
