BEREA, Ohio (92.3 The Fan) – They say timing is everything.
Unfortunately for Kareem Hunt, he picked the wrong time to gripe about a contract extension.
Hunt, who is participating in individual and positional drills, has elected not to participate in team drills during training camp for the foreseeable future. Josina Anderson of CBS Sports first reported that Hunt has decided to sit them out starting with Friday’s practice, and he did so again on Saturday.
According to Anderson, Hunt has told the team “Multiple times” he “Wants to get paid or traded,” but he prefers to remain in Cleveland.
When healthy, Hunt is a dynamic and powerful runner.
Injuries limited Hunt to eight games last season, and he’s appeared in 32 of them with nine starts over three years in Cleveland where he’s totaled 2,169 scrimmage yards and 19 touchdowns.
It’s not that Hunt, who is in the final year of his contract and is scheduled to bring home $6.25 million this season, isn’t deserving of an extension, because he might be, but his contract isn’t the first thing on Browns EVP/GM Andrew Berry’s ‘To Do’ list right now.
First, Berry is sweating out the Deshaun Watson situation. Watson is gone for at least the first six games of the season following Sue L. Robinson’s ruling that Watson and the NFLPA did not challenge and if the NFL gets their way – which they likely will – Watson isn’t playing at all in 2022 barring an injunction and it is unclear when and if he will be allowed to play in 2023.
The NFL clearly wants to make an example of Watson and punish him severely for multiple violations of the league’s conduct policy stemming from accusations of sexual misconduct during massage therapy sessions that resulted in 25 lawsuits with 23 settled and another dropped after a judge required the plaintiffs to use their names.
This after Berry forked over six draft picks, including three first rounders, to the Texans and gave Watson $230 million fully guaranteed while protecting Watson’s signing bonus from any loss as the result of a suspension.
If Watson is banned for 2022, that’s not exactly a GM of the Year move for Berry, who might need to go get a starting quarterback **whispers Jimmy Garoppolo assuming Kyle Shanahan doesn’t already have a 32-point presentation ready to go as to why he won’t trade the exiled 49ers QB to Cleveland** if Jacoby Brissett is unable to show them that he can lead the Browns to the playoffs without Watson.
Then there’s the state of the running back room.
It is crowded.
Hunt is stuck as the No. 2 back behind Nick Chubb, who is in the first year of a three-year, $36.6 million extension, no matter what.
The Browns brought back D’Ernest Johnson, who was a restricted free agent this offseason, and are paying him $1,216,500 this season with the ability to earn over $2 million more in rushing and scrimmage yardage incentives. Johnson has averaged over five yards per carry in his limited time on the field but has been impressive enough that Berry brought him back.
What may help Hunt is that 2021 sixth-round pick Demetric Felton continues to be used more as a receiver than running back, but what doesn’t help Hunt is that rookie Jerome Ford, selected in the fifth round out of Cincinnati, has flashed early in camp, and we all know GMs like to keep their draft picks around.
So, Hunt will have to pardon head coach Kevin Stefanski if he’s not losing any sleep over Hunt sitting out team reps when he has plenty of other players to take them in practice and even the preseason if need be.
For Hunt, he appears to be the victim of bad timing.
