The Kansas City Chiefs have had an embarrassment of riches at the running back position over the past couple of decades.
Between 2001 and 2014, the Chiefs' leading rusher went from Priest Holmes (2001-04) to Larry Johnson (2005-08) to Jamaal Charles (2009-14)—excluding Charles' 2011 season in which he was injured. Those three players combined to have seven seasons of at least 1,400 yards rushing, which is the most for any team in the NFL during that span.
Furthermore, only four teams across the league had as many as four 1,400-yard seasons from a player over that time, and even so—most of those were dominated by one guy. The Chiefs had it from three different players.
The Chargers had five seasons of at least 1,400 yards, but all of them were courtesy of LaDainian Tomlinson (2002-03, 2005-07). The Vikings and Seahawks each had four, but three of them were from one player—Adrian Peterson (2008, 2012, 2015) for the Vikings and Shaun Alexander (2003-05) for the Seahawks.
Through four games of the 2017 NFL season, there may be another name soon headed to that list for the Chiefs in rookie third-round pick Kareem Hunt, who currently leads the NFL with 502 yards rushing through four games.
If there's one guy who can properly appreciate what Holmes, Johnson, Charles and now Hunt have brought to the table—it's former Chiefs' quarterback Trent Green, who played with both Holmes and Johnson, and has covered Charles and Hunt as part of the Chiefs' preseason broadcast crew (and he also still lives in Kansas City).
"You start rattling off those backs whether it's Priest, Johnson or Jamaal—[Hunt] is a different runner than any of them," Green explained over the phone this week. "His stature, his style of running—he also does a nice job of catching the ball out of the backfield. I don't think you're going to line him up like a Marshall Faulk, a Matt Forte or Roger Craig or something like that (at receiver).
"But I think from a running standpoint, I've been really impressed with just his balance, his patience, his vision at such a young age."
Despite all of the success the Chiefs have had at running back over the years, the franchise record for rushing yards in a season by a rookie hasn't been eclipsed since Joe Delaney had 1,121 in 1981.
In fact, there have only been six running backs in franchise history who have put up more than 600 yards rushing in their rookie season, and the last to do it was the "Nigerian Nightmare" Christian Okoye, who had 660 in 1987.
Hunt is one good game on Sunday night against the Houston Texans away from entering that company just five games into his NFL career.
Green spoke about the history of Chiefs' running backs, and how unique it is what Hunt has done.
"Priest and LJ were two completely different people and then they had really completely different skill sets," Green noted. "LJ was more of a big 230-pound bull that would just try running through everybody, and Priest was more about vision and cutbacks, speed and acceleration.
"Kareem really reminds me of a combination of the two of them, and obviously I'm not trying to put undue pressure on him—it's just when I watch him I see pieces of what Priest did well, and I see pieces of what LJ did well, and that's kind of fun to see."
Overall, Green sees similarities to the Chiefs' current offense, which ranks second in the league right now by averaging 405.3 total yards per game, and the one he orchestrated years ago. He credits Hunt and the running game for really taking it to the next level and helping quarterback Alex Smith and the passing game, and vice versa.
"That's really how our offense was rolling in the early-to-mid 2000's," Green explained. "You never knew where we were coming from because we did so many different things. We didn't have that big Julio Jones-type receiver. We had a bunch of guys that you were going to be able to take advantage of. It could be Eddie [Kennison] for 140, it could be Dante [Hall] for 120, or it could be Johnnie Morton or Sammie Parker in there.
"That's what's kind of fun with this offense now."
With all of the trust Hunt has earned over the past few weeks and the numbers he's put up, it's easy to forget how it all began. The first carry of his career resulted in a fumble against the New England Patriots, which now seems it'll just be a funny anecdote in a memorable and historic season.
"I remember thinking, 'This kid's done. They may not even put him back in the game,'" NBC color analyst Cris Collinsworth, who will be on the call for Sunday night's game against the Texans, recalled of Hunt's first career carry. "And of course, Andy Reid did the right and gave him the ball right back and he went on to have a phenomenal game.
"Just goes to show the makeup of the young man himself, that he could come back and not just play well, but make dynamic plays, beat the world champions in their place when they hung the banner that night. That kind of stuff doesn't happen in the NFL."
Hunt has been doing a lot of things this year that typically doesn't happen in the NFL.
He's just the fourth player in NFL history to have four-straight games of at least 100 yards from scrimmage to begin a career, and he had three-straight games with a 50-plus-yard touchdown, which is an NFL record.
"I went back and watched every single one of his runs this year and you just start taking for granted that the guy who hits him the first time isn't going to get him on the ground," Collinsworth explained. "You just don't see that. He's not Jim Brown or Earl Campbell from a size standpoint, but he has some unique skill to get those pads down low and he'll almost come to a stop at contact, but the collision inevitably knocks down the defender and he keeps on going."
Internally, the Chiefs' coaches are more impressed with Hunt's all-around game, which includes things that don't end up in box scores or on stat sheets—things like blocking, knowing his assignments and role within a given play or concept.
"I like what he's doing," Chiefs coach Andy Reid said of Hunt. "You're getting a complete back is what you're getting. He's not just a ball carrier. That's the thing that's important to a coach."
Reid also said a lot of credit needs to go to Chiefs' running backs coach Eric Bieniemy, who in his own special way, has been all over Hunt since the day he first arrived.
But perhaps the best part of this story for Hunt, who if he stays healthy, will undoubtedly enter the exclusive fraternity of Chiefs' running backs who have been amongst the best in the league for almost two decades, is that he's not letting any of this success get to his head.
"It's one of the best parts," Chiefs' offensive coordinator Matt Nagy mentioned of Hunt's demeanor and character. "He's extremely humble and doesn't get a big head. We see him in practice with [Bieniemy] just working on the little things, and so to have four games like this and be blown up and have a lot of success, he's got to keep that nice and straight and even-keeled, and he'll do that.
"We knew that coming out that he was that way."
The Chiefs may have known Hunt was humble, but there aren't many people who could have expected this kind of a start.
Given all the history and success, the explanation may just be that it's a Chiefs' thing.
