People within the NFL still question whether Jacksonville Jaguars rookie Travis Hunter can handle full-time two-way duties in the pros after he made his preseason debut Saturday, according to ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler.<\/p>\n
The Heisman Trophy winner played a total of 19 snaps, 11 on offense and eight on defense, in a 31-25 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers.<\/p>\n
Fowler reported Sunday on SportsCenter that kind of workload was considered a “healthy split” and one Hunter should be able to replicate moving forward. The doubt comes with whether that can be expanded to a role like the one he had at Colorado.<\/p>\n
“They said, ‘Look, he can do it in a setting like this where it’s lower snap counts and he looks good.’ One scout told me, ‘It’s clear that he moves a little differently than a lot of other special skill-set, special athletes.’ But if you’re talking 70, 80 snaps over a game over 17 games, there’s still a lot of skepticism. <\/p>\n
“But at least that was a good little blueprint for what you could do, how you could use him. Put him in there for a couple of snaps on offense, bring him off, get him some water, bring him back in. It’s going to be a process. I think the Jaguars are dealing with fluidity throughout. I think it’s going to be changing as we go.”<\/p>\n
The Jaguars and Hunter are trying to break new ground. In the modern history of the NFL, no player<\/a> has juggled offensive and defensive snaps at a high volume across multiple seasons.<\/p>\n