{"id":55520,"date":"2025-08-09T14:08:06","date_gmt":"2025-08-09T14:08:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/55520\/"},"modified":"2025-08-09T14:08:06","modified_gmt":"2025-08-09T14:08:06","slug":"nfl-insider-sets-expectation-for-travis-hunter-how-much-hell-play-offense-defense","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/55520\/","title":{"rendered":"NFL insider sets expectation for Travis Hunter, how much he’ll play offense, defense"},"content":{"rendered":"

ESPN\u2019s Jeremy Fowler set some expectations for Travis Hunter<\/a> and his ability to play both ways as a rookie for the Jacksonville Jaguars. The Jaguars intend to play him at wide receiver and cornerback, like he did in college, right away.<\/p>\n

How much he plays on both sides remains to be seen, but the general consensus is Hunter will play offense a little bit more than defense. The snap count total likely won\u2019t be what it was in college, but Hunter will see the field a lot.<\/p>\n

The Jaguars will be smart, per Fowler. They want to manage their star rookie at No. 2 overall pick the right way to make sure he plays at the highest level.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, they\u2019re trying to temper expectations a little bit, or at least I will, because when people think going both sides, they think he\u2019s going to play 110-120 snaps. That\u2019s just not going to happen. It\u2019s not realistic in the NFL. But asking some other teams about what\u2019s a good model for Hunter, they say maybe play 40 snaps on offense, 30 snaps on defense, or 45-25 \u2026 but it\u2019s not going to be an insane amount of snaps. But they do believe \u2026 people who spent time with Hunter at Colorado<\/a>, they believe he\u2019s that kind of special, not only player, but personality, where he can handle it, if anybody can. He\u2019s really well conditioned. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe problem is, you put him out at cornerback and you play him a lot, he\u2019s already playing offense, then they\u2019re gonna have Derrick Henry, those big running guys coming right at you. You\u2019re gonna have to tackle, that questions your durability a little bit. So those are some things he has to answer early.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just last week, Hunter was listed as a starting wide receiver for the Jaguars, but a backup at cornerback.<\/a> That could develop into starting roles both ways though, at least as far as snaps are concerned.<\/p>\n

Jaguars head coach Liam Coen spoke to Rich Eisen<\/a> to discuss the plan to play on both offense and defense. However, it appears that Hunter is taking more toward the receiver position than he is in the defensive secondary.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s happening,\u201d Coen said of Hunter\u2019s status of playing both sides of the ball. \u201cEverybody in the building was on board with \u2014 how do we get the best out of Travis\u2019s days? \u2026 Fast forward to now, where he has taken massive strides, specifically at the receiver position, of truly playing it right.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow to run each route, how to attack, leverage. His ball skills and body control are extremely natural. You can\u2019t really coach that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jacksonville will host the Pittsburgh Steelers for the opening week of the preseason on Aug. 9. It will serve as the first opportunity to see the incoming rookie during in-game NFL action.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ESPN\u2019s Jeremy Fowler set some expectations for Travis Hunter and his ability to play both ways as a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":55521,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[559],"tags":[64,63,593,85,45949],"class_list":["post-55520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nfl","tag-sports","tag-travis-hunter-22-collins-hill"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55520"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55520\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}