Kareem Hunt has been peak Jamaal Charles for the Chiefs

Great point this week by 610 Sports’ Carrington Harrison who said that in the same offseason that the Chiefs lose Jamaal Charles they pick up Kareem Hunt, who has basically been peak Jamaal Charles through three weeks this season.

By that I mean the three games we’ve seen from Kareem Hunt so far this year is arguably as good of a three game stretch as we saw from Jamaal when he was in Kansas City.

I went back and looked at Jamaal Charles’s career numbers and tried to find a three game stretch that’s comparable. I found two (and I’m probably missing one really obvious one so point that out in the comments).

It looks like a stretch that would be comparable is Week 15-17 of the 2009 season for Jamaal, which included the 259-yard day against the Broncos in the season finale. There’s also Week 14-16 of the 2013 season which included his 195-yard, 4 touchdown receiving day against the Raiders.

Let’s look at these numbers:

Kareem Hunt (Week 1-3 2017)

• 401 rushing yards
• 137 receiving yards
• 538 total yards
• 6 touchdowns

Jamaal Charles (Week 15-17 2009)

• 515 rushing yards
• 41 receiving yards
• 556 total yards
• 3 touchdowns

Jamaal Charles (Week 14-16 2013)

• 276 rushing yards
• 241 receiving yards
• 517 total yards
• 8 touchdowns

It’s pretty close overall but with touchdowns being the tiebreaker ... I take Kareem Hunt over 2009 Jamaal. I take 2013 Jamaal over 2017 Kareem though because of the touchdown tiebreaker (although 200 receiving yards in one game is less repeatable).

Now Kareem has to keep doing this and do it for multiple years before he’s Jamaal, which is the hard part. This three game stretch though is good context for how good he’s been these three weeks.