KANSAS CITY, Mo. — On the first play of his first NFL game in 2017, you may recall, Kareem Hunt lost a fumble at New England.

Safe to say he was devastated.

So much so that even as he came off the field he wondered if his time with the Chiefs and in the NFL instantly was in jeopardy.

“Honestly, I thought I wasn’t going to get the ball again for the rest of the game,” he told The Kansas City Star at his locker earlier this month. “I thought my career was going to go down the drain.”

With the sort of feel for the moment that has served him so well, though, Chiefs coach Andy Reid promptly intervened:

“‘Lock in. Don’t worry about it,’” Hunt remembered him saying. “‘We’re giving it to you as soon as we get the ball back.’”

Sure enough, Reid called on Hunt to run again on the first play of the next series. Thus ensued what became a jaw-dropping debut game: Hunt rushed for 148 yards and a touchdown on 17 carries and had five catches for 98 yards and two more touchdowns in a 42-27 win.

“It motivated me so much,” Hunt said. “Because he just put his trust in me, and I promised not to let him down.”

Hunt went on to lead the NFL in rushing yards with 1,327, and he hasn’t lost a fumble since.

Flash forward: As of his September return from being banished by the Chiefs in 2018, Hunt has been “critical to our success,” general manager Brett Veach said Sunday night after Hunt scored a touchdown in the Chiefs’ 32-29 win over Buffalo in the AFC Championship Game.

Long after the game, in video taken by Brandon Zenner of KWCH, Hunt went back on the turf of GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium and sauntered through the confetti as he gazed into the stands with a Super Bowl appearance at last in his sights.

Perhaps a hint as to what he was thinking could be found through the name of the song (“Never Stop” by Future) and the first lyrics of it attached to that video scene on Hunt’s Instagram page:

“I’m livin’ my second life, it’s so amazin'."

‘It hurts my soul’

Which brings us back to Hunt’s six years in exile from the Chiefs underscored by a track somewhat parallel to that pivotal moment in the Patriots game between Hunt and Reid — a dynamic that makes for a snapshot of a vital aspect of Reid’s success.

While Reid’s best-known asset is an offensive genius that has been fundamental to winning 301 NFL games and taking a place on the Mt. Rushmore of pro football history, the reason so many players are so dedicated to Reid is because he believes in second chances and demonstrates a sincere depth of care about them.

Even when they are no longer part of his teams.

I’ll always remember speaking with former Chief Dee Ford about Reid the week of Super Bowl LIV against San Francisco when Ford was with the 49ers.

“Andy is a special human being. … He’s going to always do what he can even if he’s not benefiting from it,” he said, later adding, “He doesn’t look at this as what he can gain.”

Back to the case in point:

Hunt was released by the Chiefs in November 2018 after video emerged of an appalling off-season incident in Cleveland in which he shoved and kicked a woman that contradicted how he’d deceived the Chiefs.

Even though he resumed his career with the Browns, what happened five years ago Monday spoke to his plenty-deserved but nonetheless haunting separation from where and what he wanted to be: Soon after he was pulled over for speeding in Rocky River, Ohio, days before Super Bowl LIV, TMZ released dashcam video of a mournful Hunt’s exchange with a police officer.

“I’ve lost everything already, sir,” Hunt said, later adding, “You know what happened to me? Should be playing for a freakin’ Super Bowl, man. It hurts my soul like you wouldn’t understand.”

Pitiful as his words were, just feeling sad about what he’d cost himself isn’t the same as remorse and truly seeking redemption.

But even as he seemed to be struggling on a number of levels, Hunt felt Reid looking over him across the miles and years.

“It’s not just about football,” Hunt said. “He always wants the best for me as a person. Even when I wasn’t in Kansas City, he would text me, checking in on me and seeing how I’m doing as a person. He’s a father-figure type of guy. …

“Having a coach like that that, you want to go out there and put it all on the line for is something amazing.”

‘I knew he had changed’

No wonder Hunt, a free agent without a home after last season, was thrilled to get the call from the Chiefs in September after Isiah Pacheco suffered a broken fibula.

“I would have never thought in a million years that I’d be coming back here,” he recently told The Star’s Jesse Newell. “I thought that ship sank a long time ago.”

With ample reason: The tone was blunt when the Chiefs dispatched Hunt, who served an eight-game suspension the next season before playing his first game with the Browns. And there still seemed to be reason to be skeptical about Hunt, including his game itself.

But in October in his first comments on the return of Hunt, chairman and CEO Clark Hunt (no relation) said Veach, and Reid “felt confident that he had matured from that, learned from his mistake, gotten the help he needed.

“As a result, we felt comfortable bringing him back.”

While it’s unclear just what the formal vetting process was, Reid on Monday reaffirmed his faith that Kareem Hunt had earned another chance through his actions the last few years.

“I knew he had changed,” Reid said.

He cited as a step toward that a conversation with Hunt at the 2022 wedding of Patrick Mahomes, who offered Hunt encouragement over the years even after condemning his behavior in 2018.

When I asked Mahomes in September how he balanced all that, he offered a compelling answer.

“Everybody has friends that make mistakes, and obviously some are bigger than others,” he said. “But at the same time, you want to make the person better. You want to see them taking the right steps to become a better person for themselves (and) their family and the rest of society.

“And so I think you’ve seen that with Kareem.”

Certainly, Hunt has persuaded Reid, who said he always believed Hunt had a good heart despite “when he went through his deal” and that he “wanted to redeem himself” here.

“’I’m changed’ is what he’s saying,” Reid added.

While this sort of path toward redemption hardly is the same as not fumbling, one element resonates the same way when it comes to Hunt’s gratitude for a fresh chance and the way he demonstrates that by thriving in grueling short-yardage situations.

For everything else this might all be about to him, this is his chance to keep honoring Reid’s trust after Reid extended his hand through the darkness.

That approach, Hunt said, “meant the world to me.”

And reflects Reid’s world.

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