Chiefs top Browns 37-21 with lots of help from Cleveland products Hunt, Kelce
Taking the field in front of his hometown crowd for the first time as an NFL player, Kareem Hunt wanted to make sure he left something behind.
So when Hunt, a product of Willoughby, Ohio, reached the end zone in the first quarter after scoring on a 50-yard touchdown catch, he searched the row of fans above the turf for a friendly face to gift his football to.
He found it in Brendon Nowlin, a 14-year-old from Columbus, Ohio, wearing an Eric Berry jersey.
“It’s my hometown so I wanted to give something, leave something back with them,” Hunt said. “I wanted to leave a football. I just found a kid who really appreciated that football.”
Hunt handed the ball to Nowlin and found him later to sign it.
“I was in shock,” said Nowlin, who admits that before today he was more of an Eric Berry fan than a Chiefs fan because Berry played for his favorite college team, Tennessee. “This is pretty cool.”
Hunt left more than a football at FirstEnergy Stadium on Sunday afternoon. The second-year running back scored 21 points in the Chiefs’ 37-21 victory, rushing for two touchdowns and 91 yards in addition to his 50-yard receiving touchdown off Patrick Mahomes’ screen pass in the first quarter.
“It’s a stadium I used to drive by every day almost,” said Hunt, who grew up 19 miles from the Browns’ field. “To see this up there and then actually getting to play on the field in the NFL is really an honor.”
Hunt wasn’t the only Northeast Ohio native to have a stellar homecoming game. Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, hailing from Cleveland Heights, also got in on the action. He led all Kansas City receivers with 99 yards and two touchdowns on seven receptions.
“It’s kind of special that we’re on the same team, going out there and having a big game for both of us,” Hunt said. “He had a big game and I had a big game. I think only Cleveland people scored today.”
Hunt’s right: The Chiefs (8-1) scored touchdowns on five of nine possessions, and they all came from Kelce or Hunt.
The two Cleveland-area guys alternated end zone trips, beginning with Hunt’s score in the first quarter.
Kelce was next, nabbing an 11-yard pass from Mahomes (23 of 32, 375 yards, 3 TD, 1 INT) early in the second to give the Chiefs a 14-3 lead.
Then it was Hunt’s turn again, capping off a six-play, 75-yard drive that included a monster 40-yard completion to Tyreek Hill with a one-yard touchdown run.
Hunt’s score gave the Chiefs a 21-9 lead with 2 minutes, 24 seconds to go until halftime. But the Browns (2-6-1) tried their best to dampen Hunt and Kelce’s return, scoring a touchdown on a 19-yard pass from rookie quarterback Baker Mayfield to Duke Johnson with just 30 seconds left in the half. With the Browns’ touchdown, the Chiefs’ lead was cut to six points at the break.
The Chiefs tried to widen the margin before halftime but were whistled for intentional grounding with nine seconds to go on a call that seemed to confuse both teams and the entire stadium. A Browns defender was whistled for being offside, stopping the clock. The Chiefs chose to decline the penalty, but Mahomes spiked the ball on the next play because he thought he needed to stop the clock and save a timeout.
Because the clock was already stopped, Mahomes was called for intentional grounding and assessed a 10-yard penalty. The Chiefs had to take a timeout anyway to prevent a 10-second runoff. Two plays later, Mahomes was intercepted on the final play of the first half.
“(Chiefs lineman Mitchell) Schwartz actually told me, ‘You can’t do that,’” Mahomes said, laughing. “But I was like, ‘We can just try to get away with it.’ And we didn’t. It made a difference, for sure, in that half.”
But with the help of the hometown guys, the Chiefs resumed their offensive dominance in the third quarter thanks also to two completions from Mahomes to Kelce on the first drive. First, Mahomes tossed a 16-yard pass to Kelce on third and long as he was scrambling and falling. On the next play, Mahomes put a ball in the end zone where only Kelce could get it.
“He’s being Showtime Mahomes,” Kelce said. “Just when you think the play’s over, he finds a way to make it work.”
Hunt scored the Chiefs’ final touchdown of the day before Harrison Butker’s late field goal, taking just two plays to score after Britton Colquitt’s blocked punt by Damien Williams set up the Chiefs at the Browns’ 21-yard-line.
This time, Hunt launched the ball into the Dawg Pound.
“I was home, so I threw it in there,” Hunt said. “I hope somebody got it. It was too hard to pick one person.”
The Cleveland fans weren’t quite as happy to receive the ball as Nowlin in the other end zone. They threw a dog mask on the field and eventually tossed the ball back, too.
But a couple hostile fans weren’t going to dampen Hunt’s homecoming.
“It’s all good, Hunt said with a laugh. “If they don’t want the football, I’ll take it.”
Brooke Pryor
Brooke Pryor covers the Kansas City Chiefs and NFL for The Star.
This story was originally published November 4, 2018 at 3:23 PM.