How much of a workload can Kareem Hunt handle?

The Kansas City Chiefs rookie running back handled a significant part of the offense on Thursday. How long can Kareem Hunt keep it up?

By now we should all have the numbers memorized. Kareem Hunt’s historic performance in the Kansas City Chiefs opening win over the New England Patriots was a performance we’ll be talking about for as long as we’re telling tales about our favorite team. The numbers tell the story: 246 yards from scrimmage, 3 touchdowns, 1 opening fumble that was forgotten as quick as it happened.

The official stats in the game tell us that Hunt had 22 total touches during the game on 40 total snaps. Basically if Hunt was in the game at all, he was getting the ball half the time. He caught 5 of 5 targets, a remarkably efficient and reliable sample, and had 17 carries for an incredible 148 rushing yards. It was a stunning performance by any and all measures and the Chiefs won their toughest game on the calendar because of it.

But how much of this can Kareem Hunt keep up? It’s not just about the actual offensive production but even how many touches is healthy for Hunt to have this year? Even more, if the Chiefs are playing in January, how much work do they give Hunt now? Should there be a sort of pitch count, so to speak, in place?

Kansas City Chiefs

Despite the crazy amount of yards—again, 246 from scrimmage!—the reality is that Hunt didn’t really have that many touches versus the Patriots. He had 22 touches in New England. If that somehow became normative for the entire season, it would only equal 352 touches between carries and catches. That’s a lot but it’s not unheard of.

Just last year at Toledo, Hunt had 303 touches on the season for the Rockets. In terms of actual carries, if you project his Week 1 totals, Hunt would only end up with 10 more rushes on the year at 272 than he had last year in college. That’s quite reasonable for Hunt. although certainly it’s a much longer season than he had in college. If anything, Hunt is used to being used more in less games than he’ll play this year, which makes it a challenge to know how much is too much.

Hunt’s final season at Toledo was definitely a significant jump in total touches from anything he’s ever had before, up from 189 touches the previous season. His sophomore year, he had 214 touches for 1,670 yards from scrimmage. In short, last year’s total of 303 was a serious jump in workload and yet his play certainly didn’t suffer in the process.

There will be closer games in which the Chiefs are ahead in the near future where Hunt might earn several more carries than he did against the Patriots. Then again, he’s not likely to average five catches per game from here on out (which would be good for an incredible 80 receptions during his rookie season).

For the sake of comparison, LeSean McCoy averaged 60 catches and 227 carries during his prime years playing under Andy Reid with the Philadelphia Eagles. That’s a total of 287 which sounds like a healthy average. If the Chiefs can monitor the workload, even in a passive way, it could go a long way toward making sure Hunt remains productive in the postseason as well as the coming years in K.C.