He wasn’t lost so much geographically, although there certainly were challenges of that sort as well for the Estonia native who first stepped on U.S. soil in 2009. It was more a matter of trying to find his bearings fundamentally in sport he nothing about growing up.
But through patience and practice – in addition to some unfortunate injuries to teammates – Hunt steadily improved and showed flashes of why the Bengals were willing to use a second-round pick on a player destined to be a project.
One week into his second training camp, Hunt, who is accustomed to traveling great distances, talked about how much ground he has covered as a professional.
“This whole experience has been night and day,” he said. “The biggest thing for me was to learn how I need to play to play this defense and the techniques we need to do and all the gap responsibility and everything that goes with it. Now that I have it down, I can set it loose.”
After appearing in only one of the first eight regular-season games last year, Hunt played in the final nine and the Wild Card playoff game. He finished with four tackles, including half a sack and seven quarterback pressures while searching for a comfort level along the way.
“Sometimes things would happen to him last year, and it would be the first time he ever saw it,” defensive line coach Jay Hayes said. “He’d come off and have that look in his eye. I’d say ‘OK, if that happens, this is what you have to do.’ It wasn’t all natural to him. It’s becoming more so.”
Which is why Hunt is anxious to hit the field for the preseason opener in Kansas City, and why head coach Marvin Lewis is eager to see how he does.
“I think he’s made a huge, huge, huge leap. We didn’t know that Margus would get an opportunity to play much football last year, but when Robert (Geathers) got hurt, and Geno (Atkins) got hurt, he got to play quite a bit more than we would have expected so we’re reaping the benefit of that now.
“The fact he got experience out there on an NFL field, and now you see the confidence, and you see the things like what we’re talking about with Andy Dalton, the fact that he’s now played,” Lewis continued. “Margus now understands what to do, and he understands the tempo and the things that we were trying to get him to understand at this point last May, last June and in training camp. He’s one of the guys I’m excited to see play Thursday night in Kansas City.”
One of the biggest challenges Hunt faced last year was maintaining leverage and keeping his 6-foot-8 frame low while rushing off the edge. But his work on the scout team going against tackles Andre Smith and Anthony Collins proved to be a valuable crash course.
“Going against Andre and A.C., I really learned how to stay low and play with leverage because I needed to give them a look and try to make it realistic,” Hunt said. “At the same time (former defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer and Jay (Hayes) were on me about trying to be as live with the pass rush as possible.
“I really had to force myself to stay low,” he added. “I feel it’s been working. There were just a couple of times in the first or second practice where I was kind of standing high, but other than that I’ve held my leverage points. I’m personally really looking forward to the preseason games and getting that live action.”
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