a leaping interception<\/a> in the back of the end zone against New England two weeks ago, the first of his career, and nearly had another one against the Bengals. He picked off Joe Burrow\u2019s deep pass and then put a move on Higgins that left the receiver flailing on the ground and prompted Hunter to mockingly stare at him as he ran the other way.<\/p>\n\u201cHe does things like that every single day,\u201d Jaguars tight end Brenton Strange said. \u201cIt kind of make you be like, \u2018Wow.\u2019 It\u2019s routine for us now. We\u2019ve seen it so many times it\u2019s not surprising that he does something like that because he comes out here every single day and that\u2019s what he does.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jacksonville\u2019s defensive backs watched it several times Monday, with the reaction being \u201cwhat you imagine it would be,\u201d safety Antonio Johnson said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a lot of laughter and excitement because he did make him miss crazy,\u201d Johnson added. \u201cAnd whenever a player misses like that or gets juked like that, he\u2019s going to get the reactions.\u201d<\/p>\n
Coaches, however, refuse to overreact.<\/p>\n
Hunter played four offensive snaps in the season opener, catching one pass for 8 yards and running once for 3 yards, but hasn\u2019t been involved since.<\/p>\n
The need for him to be on defense is one reason. Jacksonville\u2019s upgraded receiving corps is another.<\/p>\n
Since Hunter caught eight passes for 101 yards and a touchdown in a loss to the Los Angeles Rams in London last October, the Jaguars traded for veteran Jakobi Meyers, watched Parker Washington develop into a No. 1 receiver and drafted Josh Cameron from Baylor and CJ Williams from Stanford. Speedster Brian Thomas Jr. also remains in the mix.<\/p>\n
Those moves allow the Jags to let Hunter hone his skills on one side of the ball. The second overall pick in the 2025 NFL draft missed nine games last season after tearing a ligament in his right knee and sat out most of the offseason while rehabbing.<\/p>\n
\u201cEach week we\u2019re seeing more improvement from him,\u201d defensive coordinator Anthony Campanile said. \u201cHe\u2019s really working hard at it. He really is. \u2026 Like anything else, the more you play, the more comfortable you are.\u201d<\/p>\n
See AP\u2019s full NFL coverage here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bozemandailychronicle.com offers audio versions of articles using Instaread. Some words may be mispronounced. JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) \u2014 A…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":423196,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[57,116,118,117,8652,110,166880],"class_list":["post-423195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-football","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-nfl-football","tag-sports","tag-travis-hunter-jaguars"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423195","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=423195"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423195\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/423196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=423195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=423195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=423195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}