Arrowhead Pride
Back for 2025, the veteran running back is focused on winning a Super Bowl with Kansas City.
When running back Kareem Hunt returned to the Kansas City Chiefs in 2024, the season didn’t end quite the way he wanted. Reaching (and winning) a Super Bowl was a big part of why he wanted to come back; he wanted another crack at bringing the whole thing home.
Now he’ll get another chance, as the team has re-signed the 29-year-old to a one-year contract last week. Despite the championship loss, Hunt still loves playing for the Chiefs.
“The culture is just great,” he told reporters on Thursday. “It didn’t end the way we wanted it to. But we’ve got a lot of work to do — and I feel like we’ve got another good shot at it.”
Hunt played an integral role in the team’s 2024 offense, filling in when running back Isiah Pacheco went down with an injury. His 200 carries (in only 13 games) were the most he’d had in a single season since he was a Kansas City rookie in 2017.
Hunt’s role for the 2025 season isn’t yet known. While former teammate Samaje Perine has returned to the Cincinnati Bengals, Pacheco is fully healthy — and the team has signed former San Francisco 49ers’ running back Elijah Mitchell, too. But Hunt appears unconcerned.
“I’m just doing whatever Coach Reid and those guys ask me to do, man,” he insisted. “I’ll just play my role — go out there [to] do whatever [I can] to help the team win.”
Although Hunt will be 30 before the season starts, he doesn’t foresee his age will be an issue. After all, he managed his 2024 workload without the benefit of an offseason program or training camp.
“I am just taking care of my body, working every day and eating right,” he explained. “I feel like it’ll help me in the long run. So my body feels great. I’m excited to have an actual training camp — and be there when everything gets running.”
Hunt said that the Super Bowl loss put a fire in him to get back and finish what he started.
“You never want to go to the Super Bowl and lose,” he noted, “but I’m just grateful I got to experience that. I definitely want to get back there and see how it is on the other side.”
Hunt knows that to reach the goal he’s set for himself, it will take everything he has. That will require fully committing himself to the task at hand, which he says is his mindset for this season.
“I just wanna focus on finishing the job,” he said, “finding a way to win that last game.”
