Chicago Bears had not seriously considered Kareem Hunt

Both Ryan Pace and Matt Nagy told the press the Chicago Bears hadn’t seriously considered Kareem Hunt.

Ryan Pace and Matt Nagy spoke with the media on Wednesday from Indianapolis and they both addressed several different issues facing the Chicago Bears.

While they didn’t get into specifics regarding free agents they might be targeting, they did discuss a free agent no longer available to target: Kareem Hunt.

Pace and Nagy clearly spoke ahead of time because both of them had identical things to say about Kareem Hunt.

The Bears message was clear: we discussed it, but it never got serious. I would add one key word to that message- yet.

The conversations about Kareem Hunt never got serious because the Bears never got an opportunity to let them progress to getting to a serious level.

Most NFL circles saw the Bears as the perfect fit for Hunt. He knows the offense, he’s worked with Matt Nagy, and the Bears need a running back that is better suited for their offense.

But Hunt also has connections to Cleveland Browns General Manager John Dorsey who drafted Hunt in Kansas City. When the Browns were willing to sign Hunt early, he jumped at the opportunity.

The Bears were simply not going to work with that kind of timeline. Hunt’s camp wanted him on a team prior to the end of the NFL’s investigation into Hunt’s off field transgressions. If Hunt got a large suspension, getting him on an NFL roster was going to be significantly trickier.

The Bears simply were not going to commit to a player while the NFL’s investigation was going on. Nagy admitted that he had spoken to Hunt. You can bet that conversation was not about football, it was about getting his life in order and making better choices.

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For the Bears to make that commitment to Hunt, they were going to want to have the NFL investigation conclude, and they were going to want to see Hunt making strides to improve his personal life prior to signing him, not afterwards.

When the Browns were willing to sign Hunt now and ask questions later, that was the end for the Bears. Had the Browns not been interested, it’s possible Hunt would still be available and it’s very possible that Hunt could have taken steps that impress the Bears and the Bears could have been singing a different tune next month or this summer or whenever it might have been.

The Bears were never serious about Hunt because they never got the opportunity to get serious. Some reporters saying the Bears weren’t interested simply aren’t true. The Bears weren’t ready to sign Kareem Hunt, but Kareem Hunt was ready to sign. That’s all that happened in this scenario.