Football changed his life, ‘but this is just the beginning’ for Dolphins’ Robert Hunt

Forgive Robert Hunt if he can’t help but smile no matter how the Miami Dolphins’ line happens to be playing. A lot is going well for Hunt these days, especially compared to where everything began.

Consider the starting point. Actually, consider a few of them.

Hunt’s story could begin in Wiergate, Texas, where, the youngest of six, he and his family all crammed into a trailer for a most of Hunt’s early childhood — it’s where he first found a fascination with football from watching Tom Brady quarterback the New England Patriots. It could also start in 2005, when Hurricane Rita decimated East Texas; chased the Hunts to Fort Worth, Texas, to live with his grandmother; and left the family homeless upon its return to Wiergate. Even the Hunts’ third fresh start in Wiergate ended with their home burning down, sending them to Fort Worth once again.

“In and out, hotels, all that kind of good stuff,” Hunt said, “all eight of us.”

Hunt swears he never stressed too much and a trip back in time by way of his Facebook page is evidence. Maybe it was naivety — “I didn’t know what an ACT was,” he said — or maybe it’s just how he’s wired. Either way, he saw the future.

“I was optimistic,” Hunt said. “I go back on my Facebook sometime, and I see stuff of me quoting and like manifesting this stuff in like 2013, when I didn’t really know what I was going to do, so I guess I always had an idea that I wanted to do this.”

Now entering his third season in the NFL, Hunt is entrenched as a starter for the Dolphins. To a certain degree, he has made it. He’s the best returning offensive lineman on the team, a 26-year-old multimillionaire and a fan favorite because of a viral moment a year ago.

“This whole thing has changed my life, and I am extremely grateful, but,” he said, “this is just the beginning and I have bigger plans.”

Hunt, McDaniel and big potential

Year 3 in the NFL, then, is a good new starting point — another fresh start after providing a bright spot in some uneven Miami seasons for the past two years. After the Dolphins took him in the second round of the 2020 NFL Draft, Hunt started 11 games as a rookie and then all 17 in his second season. It wasn’t his fault, but Hunt had the indignity of playing on the worst offensive line in the league.

In Year 3, he will play for a new coach, and Mike McDaniel’s reputation as an offensive guru comes largely from his creativity in the run game, unleashing athletic linemen like Hunt as lead blockers and game-changing weapons. Hunt, whom Pro Football Focus graded as one of the best guards in the league in the second half of the 2021-22 NFL season, could be poised for a breakout season at right guard.

There’s another reason to wait on a breakout, too.

Here’s another starting point for Hunt: As a freshman in high school, he “failed out,” he said, and returned home from Fort Worth again. Back in Texas’ Burkeville Independent School District, Hunt started playing football again and even then he was one of only 18 players on the team, and it was down to 14 by the end of the season. Somehow, the Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns decided he was worth spending a scholarship on and he wound up becoming an all-Sun Belt Conference player in coach Billy Napier’s outside zone system — the same one McDaniel is implementing in Miami.

The jump from the Sun Belt to the NFL was one thing, but think of it another way: In just six years, he went for playing on Burkeville’s 14-man football team to playing for the Dolphins.

“The thing we loved about him,” general manager Chris Grier said after drafting Hunt in 2020, “was his competitiveness.”

Hunt admits he’s something of a “slow learner,” but, “once I get used to it, I’ve got it.”

In the second half of last year, he grasped whatever it was eluding him.

“Once I figure it out and realize I belong, then it’s going to be hard for somebody to say, Hey, you don’t belong,” Hunt said.

Robert Hunt: an unlikely star

For a lot of the world, the starting point with Hunt came last year on “Thursday Night Football,” when Miami’s second-half turnaround began with an upset of the Baltimore Ravens at Hard Rock Stadium. A busted screen play ended with the ball in Hunt’s hands and the lineman rumbling into the end zone.

It wasn’t a touchdown, of course. It also didn’t really matter. In a flash, Hunt became a meme, the subject of award-winning photographs and about as popular as a previously anonymous lineman could possibly be for a bad team.

“My phone was definitely blowing up. All my friends were making fun,” Hunt said. “A lot of offensive linemen around the world thought it was definitely a cool play and still, to this day, I’ve got a lot of kids that love that play.”

He’s also always quick to point out, “It’s an illegal play,” because he has higher aspirations than just making ESPN’s “SportsCenter.”

He has come too far to settle for just making it here.

“I don’t say it out loud,” Hunt said, “but I want to be one of the best.”