Hunt won’t be with Browns during ban

Cleveland had requested troubled back stay close

Associated Press

CLEVELAND

Kareem Hunt will have to spend his NFL suspension isolated from his team.

The suspended Browns running back, who must serve an eight-game ban for physical altercations, will not be permitted inside the team’s facility starting Saturday at 4 p.m., league spokesman Brian McCarthy said Wednesday in an email to The Associated Press.

The team had asked Commissioner Roger Goodell to allow Hunt to be around his teammates, arguing he could use the extra support. But to this point, Hunt will not be able to interact with his teammates or staff inside the team’s building in Berea until his punishment ends in November.

It’s not impossible the league could adjust its policy and amend its stance on Hunt, who was signed as a free agent by Cleveland in March, three months after being released by the Kansas City Chiefs. But to this point, he’s going to be on his own.

Hunt was suspended for two violent off-field incidents, one in which he shoved and kicked a woman during a dispute in a hotel hallway. He’s eligible to return to the team in November.

Browns quarterback Baker Mayfield was disappointed to learn Hunt won’t be present.

“It hurts him not to be around there because if you can be around your teammates, that can help you keep a positive attitude, and that definitely helps,” Mayfield said. “So that’s tough to hear.”

The 24-year-old Hunt has been practicing and playing in preseason games, and the 2017 league rushing champion is expected to be on the field tonight when the Browns host the Detroit Lions in their exhibition finale.

Hunt has been attending counseling sessions and said earlier this month that if he couldn’t be with his teammates he would “chill out, get good workouts and lay low.”

Although Hunt will have to stay away from the Browns, wide receiver Antonio Callaway will be allowed in the facility while serving his four-game suspension for violating the league’s substance abuse policy.

Callaway was suspended earlier this month during training camp. He won’t be eligible to return until the Oct. 7 game at San Francisco. Callaway owned up to his mistake, which followed a run of off-field issues while he was in college.

On Tuesday, Browns coach Freddie Kitchens said he hoped Callaway would be allowed to be with his teammates.

“If we were in fact able to do it, one of the good reasons will be because Antonio is recovering from an ankle injury,” Kitchens said. “To make sure that he gets the proper medical care and treatment, that would benefit the person as much as anything.”

MORE MAYFIELD ON TV

Baker Mayfield has a new teammate. She rocks a headband, too.

The Browns’ charismatic quarterback has entered a marketing partnership with Progressive and will star alongside his wife, Emily Wilkinson, in a national advertising campaign for the insurance giant. The ad shows the couple as new homeowners inside a football stadium.

The “At Home with Baker Mayfield” TV commercials are scheduled to debut on Sept. 5, three days before the Browns play their season opener against the Tennessee Titans, and run through the NFL season.

Mayfield has become one of the league’s rising young stars after breaking the rookie touchdown pass record in 2018. He’s quickly adding to his business portfolio while reviving a Cleveland football franchise that didn’t win a single game the season before he arrived.

Progressive is known for its innovative ads featuring Flo, the frisky, headband-and-apron wearing character who has become a brand icon.