What did the NFL and the Kansas City Chiefs want to know about the incident that eventully got running back Kareem Hunt released? Reportedly, not much.
According to a report, neither the NFL or the Chiefs filed a request to access records of the incident until after video footage was released by TMZ. And the Chiefs never did.
“The National Football League did not file a formal request for records of the Feb. 10 incident in Cleveland involving former Kansas City Chiefs running back Kareem Hunt until Nov. 30, the same day TMZ published video footage of the assault at a hotel,” Steve Vockrodt of The Kansas City Star reported. “The Kansas City Chiefs never made a formal request, according to public records reviewed by The Star.”
This, quite frankly, is a horrible look for both the NFL and the Chiefs. It paints both as institutions that want to do the right thing only when their backs are to the wall.
When the video became public, the NFL put Hunt on its exempt list and Kansas City released him, almost immediately. So upon seeing the video, both obviously knew how serious this matter was. So, why then were they not filing to see a report of the incident within days of it happening? We can kind of understand the Chiefs not bothering now. They’ve released Hunt. They should, however, have done so much earlier. The same can be said about the NFL. Waiting nearly a year to get your hands on the incident report does nobody any good.
Realistically, incidents like this are going to happen and with star players. Hunt is by no means the first and he won’t be the last. But if the NFL and its teams want to come off as being really proactive about this, they need to act quicker. They need to make an effort to get their hands on videos and incident reports before they become public knowledge. Until that happens, the league will just look like it only cares about very serious matters when there is outside pressure.