When Chicago Bears GM Ryan Pace and coach Matt Nagy met with the media for their end-of-year press conference in January, the idea of pursuing Kareem Hunt was raised and, well, it wasn’t dismissed by either decision-maker.
Fast forward almost two months and Hunt is a Brown. At the NFL Combine Wednesday, Pace said the Bears’ interest in the former NFL leading rusher was never serious.
“I think with Kareem — did we talk about it? Yes. Was it serious? No,” Pace said. “And I think every scenario that comes up, we’d do our team a disservice if we didn’t discuss every scenario. We talked about it but it never got serious.
“Anything that comes up, I mean you guys see all the rumors flying around the combine right now, you explore everything. We owe that to ourselves. But for a variety of reasons it never got serious.”
We can only assume one of those reasons is the off-field concerns with Hunt, who’s facing a lengthy suspension by the NFL for an incident last year when he allegedly physically assaulted a woman that was caught on surveillance video at a Cleveland hotel.
It also could be that the Bears are happy with their current running back situation, one that features Jordan Howard and Tarik Cohen and can be added to by using a mid-round pick on one of this year’s talented rookie running backs.
Regardless, Hunt is not a Bear. And according to Pace, he was never going to become one.
