Ever since Travis Hunter’s rookie season ended due to a non-contact knee injury during the bye week, there have been some wild assumptions made about his future on-field usage.
He wasn’t lighting the league on fire on offense or defense, and since he’s already missed half of a season, he should just play on one side of the ball, right? Now that the Jacksonville Jaguars have added wideout Jakobi Meyers and lost cornerback Greg Newsome II, Hunter can just focus on cornerback, right? He’s done with the whole
two-way idea… right?
“Absolutely not,” said Jaguars general manager James Gladstone in response to that last question on The Rich Eisen Show.
“He is set to play both sides of the ball. The piece that I think we can expect to see is actually an uptick in corner usage. Last year it was a higher volume, higher percentage of wide receiver usage than it was corner. I think we can expect to see that corner percentile and count go up as we move forward. That’s not to say anything impacts his availability and usage on offense. It just means that that cornerback usage will increase.
“It’s not to say that it won’t increase on offensive either, but it was lower on defensive side this past season. We also have a different defensive cornerback room and the bodies are different than they were a year ago. Our roster construction is different than it was a year ago. So, it’s more fitting to slot him in at corner in a different way than it was at this time last year or even as the season progressed.”
Gladstone also told Eisen that Hunter is “in a good spot” from a health standpoint.
“He’s out on the grass in a limited fashion here, and that’ll be the case throughout the remainder of the offseason program. As we get into training camp, he’ll be full go, and really looking forward to building off of the momentum that was that game for him individually versus Los Angeles in London. Obviously, being able to breach the 100-yard mark from a receiving standpoint, get in the end zone, at the same time, he turns over to the defensive side of the ball and gets a PBU on a really critical down versus Davante Adams in coverage. And so being able to build off of really where we were at that point in time, and use that momentum to carry into this next season, is an exciting piece for us.”
Meanwhile, head coach Liam Coen also clarified the plan for Hunter in a video posted by the team’s social media account.
“The plan has not changed at all, he’s going to play both sides of the football just as we drafted him to do. We have the same vision for him in terms of being able to give him those opportunities. Now is it day by day in terms of what he looks like in terms of process of rehab, absolutely. But the plan to play him on both sides of the ball as much as possible, that has absolutely stayed the same and stayed consistent. I think people look at, naturally, and see that Greg Newsome left, and that there’s a spot there that people are just plugging him into. Well, yeah, would love for him to play as much as humanly possible — on both sides of the ball.”
There you have it. Straight from the horse’s mouth. Travis Hunter will remain the only current NFL player to see the field on offense AND defense.
Jaguars fans, let us know your thoughts in the comments below!
