Kareem Hunt doesn’t play on the the Browns’ defense, but when there is a turnover, every player on the offense becomes a defensive player. And that’s what happened during the last minute of the Browns’ shellacking of the Tennessee Titans last Sunday. Baker Mayfield fumbled the ball, again, and Kareem had to save a Kenny Vaccaro scoop-and-score. See the 13:10 mark of this video.
Kareem says he practices this, and it shows. He took the perfect angle to run down Vaccaro. What I liked best is that Vaccaro didn’t even try to juke Hunt. It was almost as if he was resigned to his fate: “Oh shit, Kareem fucking Hunt is on my ass. I should probably just surrender myself.” And then Kareem unceremoniously rag-dolled Vaccaro, throwing him down without even hitting the ground himself. What a fantastic football player.
If the Browns are ever short-handed at linebacker, we know who can fill in.
Honorable mention to Donovan Peoples-Jones who had to take a wider angle than Kareem, but might have caught Vaccaro near the goal line. Andy Janovich also made a good effort, though his 4.81 speed wasn’t a match for Vaccaro.
This is Baker’s second fumble in three games. The first was against the Eagles where Baker was saved by a quick whistle. I wonder if Baker does the same fumble drill that the running-backs do. You know, the one we saw Kareem and Nick Chubb doing at the beginning of episode 9 of Building the Browns. Baker has done an incredible job of reducing his interceptions, and now he has to fix his fumbling problem.