It’s easy to be cynical about Kareem Hunt’s return to Chiefs, but consider this, too

As the murmurs began about the Chiefs potentially bringing back the banished Kareem Hunt in the wake of Isiah Pacheco’s injury, I flinched and slowly shook my head and wished it would end there.

Because it’s impossible for me to unsee the video of the February 2018 incident in Cleveland that captured Hunt shoving and kicking a woman.

When the sickening scene was unveiled in November 2018, it contradicted what the Chiefs said he had told them about the episode. To the Chiefs, that was what then prompted his nearly instant release — albeit with a disillusioning emphasis on the lie over the deed.

At the time, quarterback Patrick Mahomes summed up the situation with admirable bluntness:

“I saw the stuff that happened; we don’t do those things.”

For all that, though, the Chiefs on Tuesday ushered Hunt out of limbo onto their practice squad following the last five seasons in Cleveland. He could play as soon as Sunday in Atlanta, although coach Andy Reid downplayed that likelihood.

While I still find his return unsavory and hard to reconcile, though, I also was intrigued and moved by Mahomes’ perspective Wednesday and appreciated how Reid took seriously the questions about it and elaborated more than he normally would.

Some might see that as self-serving for the Chiefs, but it resonated with me as sincere and worthy of considering.

Despite condemning the behavior then, Mahomes revealed that he had remained in friendly contact with Hunt over the years and seemed to have been an encouraging force.

He figuratively looked over Hunt’s shoulder, offering friendship and example, and welcomed him at his wedding in 2022. He hugged him when they reunited at the Chiefs training complex.

When I asked Mahomes how he had balanced denouncing Hunt’s action back then while also standing beside him, he responded with typically astute points.

“Everybody has friends that make mistakes, and obviously some are bigger than others,” he said. “But at the same time, you want to make the person better. You want to see them taking the right steps to become a better person for themselves (and) their family and the rest of society.

“And so I think you’ve seen that with Kareem. So I’ve stayed in touch with him just to see how he’s doing, how his family’s doing and everything like that.

“And he’s been able to carve out a great career in the NFL. But you’ve seen that he’s been able to keep his nose clean and be a better person. And that’s what you want in order to make everybody better people.”

Now, there’s plenty to ponder, even debate, in the idealistic approach Mahomes offered.

While Hunt has had big moments, he’s never approximated his stunning 2017 rookie season (his 1,327 yards rushing and 53 receptions are by far career highs) and his performances have plunged the last few years.

Meanwhile, it’s not clear what real rehabilitative work Hunt has done behind the scenes, and it’s impossible to know his state of mind beyond the fact he has publicly expressed contrition.

But the spirit of what Mahomes was saying and his ultimate point is broader and more thought-provoking about how to view the 29-year-old — who served not only the discipline of an eight-game NFL suspension but also has been saddled with the shame of being exiled by the Chiefs and the lingering stigma.

Don’t we all want people to learn from their issues and become better people?

Do we really want 22-year-olds who did something terrible like that resigned to having that be the ultimate signature of their lives and just be done with them?

Can’t we appreciate the possibility of change and redemption?

That’s a really personal proposition to consider, of course. And there’s no one answer since there are so many different scenarios and degrees of the premise.

In this case, you certainly could argue that Hunt is free to go on with his life but that he shouldn’t be in the NFL.

Moreover, no matter how you see it, the onus is on the Chiefs to first do no harm in this process and be right about managing this risk.

So it’s easy to be cynical.

But maybe it’s bigger to have healthy skepticism.

Without knowing the formalities of the Chiefs’ vetting process, it’s encouraging that Reid on Wednesday understood the significance of accountability on this. He answered a wave of nearly a dozen questions about Hunt — most of which essentially were about why the Chiefs felt this move was appropriate.

He spoke about how in 2018 the Chiefs “thought he needed a change of scenery and to get some help and take care of business. And we felt like he did that.”

He pointed to Hunt’s age, adding, “Looks like he’s grown up some.”

And he referred to sources with Cleveland, who said there were “no issues there” — though during a 2020 traffic stop in which Hunt was cited for speeding he acknowledged to police he would have failed a drug test for marijuana.

(In video of the stop, Hunt could be heard speaking of the Chiefs: “I should be playing for a freakin’ Super Bowl. It hurts my soul like you wouldn’t understand.”)

And Reid spoke about his reasoning on extending a fresh opportunity, for which he long has been known.

“I think people deserve a second chance,” Reid said, “if they’ve done something to work on the first part of it.”

Finally, he reiterated the message he’d left Hunt all those years ago.

“We meant what we said: You need to take care of this,” Reid said. “This isn’t good, as you go through life, for anybody. So it seems like he has a grasp on that, and I know he’s done good here since that point.

“And I’d anticipate that that continues. If that wasn’t the case, we wouldn’t have brought him back.”

Now it’s on Hunt to demonstrate that faith was justified — as much off the field as on.