{"id":258992,"date":"2026-05-05T09:26:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T09:26:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/258992\/"},"modified":"2026-05-05T09:26:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T09:26:13","slug":"jaguars-historic-46-million-two-way-stud-named-prime-breakout-candidate-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/258992\/","title":{"rendered":"Jaguars’ historic $46 million two-way stud named prime breakout candidate"},"content":{"rendered":"

The future is bright for the Jacksonville Jaguars<\/a>.<\/p>\n

After back-to-back disappointing seasons, Jacksonville enjoyed one of its best campaigns in recent memory, securing 13 regular-season wins and getting a home playoff game.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Jaguars lost a heartbreaker to the Buffalo Bills<\/a> in the AFC Wild Card round, but there\u2019s no question the franchise is headed in the right direction.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Judging by the fact that Fox Sports\u2019 Greg Auman<\/a> believes that the Jaguars\u2019 22-year-old historic two-way stud (he became the first player in Pro Football Focus history to record the highest-graded rookies list in a single week last season) is a prime breakout candidate for the 2026-27 campaign, it\u2019s safe to say he\u2019s also under the impression that Jacksonville is in good shape moving forward.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201c(Travis) Hunter’s debut season was disappointing on both sides of the ball (wide receiver and cornerback),\u201d Auman wrote Monday. \u201cHe had 28 catches for 298 yards and a single touchdown at receiver and had even less production at corner, posting 15 tackles and zero interceptions. After seven games, his rookie season ended early with a knee injury, watching as the Jaguars finished 13-4 and won a division title.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHunter’s on course to be fully recovered by the start of training camp, and it should be a simpler second season for him. It remains to be seen how much work he’ll get on offense \u2014 the Jaguars traded for Jakobi Meyers during last season and gave him a lucrative extension, and they’ve held off on trading third-year receiver Brian Thomas Jr., with Parker Washington enjoying a breakout season last year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cHunter should be an every-down corner, and that side of the ball should be his focus and the best chance for him to shine. Jacksonville let Greg Newsome leave in free agency and didn’t draft a corner, setting Hunter up for a central role.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hunter is one of the most intriguing players in the league. It\u2019s not every day that NFL fans are fortunate enough to witness a player contribute on both ends of the field and possess the physical tools\/traits necessary to do it at a high level.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As Auman noted, Hunter\u2019s rookie campaign with the Jaguars didn\u2019t go as planned, as a significant lower-body injury limited him to just seven games. That said, a healthy version of Hunter in 2026-27 should be exhilarating to watch from start to finish, as he\u2019s bound to excel in at least one of his specialties during his sophomore campaign.<\/p>\n

More NFL:\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The future is bright for the Jacksonville Jaguars. After back-to-back disappointing seasons, Jacksonville enjoyed one of its best…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":258993,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[116,118,117],"class_list":["post-258992","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=258992"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258992\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/258993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=258992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=258992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=258992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}