A regular role on both sides of the ball has been planed in Travis Hunter‘s case throughout the offseason. He will make his Jaguars preseason debut this week, and time on offense and defense will be in store.

Jags head coach Liam Coen said this morning (via NFL Network’s Cameron Wolfe) the team’s starters will play on Saturday against the Steelers. That includes Hunter, who will spend time at receiver as well as cornerback. Given the manner in which the Heisman winner’s practice workload has taken shape during training camp, today’s announcement comes as little surprise.

Still, Jacksonville’s decision to give Hunter game reps on offense and defense is noteworthy as the team evaluates how best to use the No. 2 pick. During the spring, the team made it clear no firm number was in place regarding how many snaps at either position Hunter would play in any given game. The 22-year-old’s workload could change on a week-to-week basis depending on matchups but also his ability to withstand a two-way role at the NFL level.

Jacksonville’s first unofficial depth chart lists Hunter as a starter at the receiver spot alongside Brian Thomas Jr. and Dyami Brown. Meanwhile, the Colorado product is a backup behind Jourdan Lewis and Tyson Campbell at the cornerback position. Like all other teams, the Jaguars will of course spend plenty of time with three cornerbacks on the field, though, so Hunter should be able to see a notable workload on the boundary when defending. Lewis is set to handle slot duties, something which will make the Jags’ safety competition one to watch as the rest of the summer plays out while leaving a number of snaps available for Hunter.

The Steelers will rest a number of their starters on Saturday, per head coach Mike Tomlin. The opposite is true of their opponent, and Hunter in particular will be worth watching closely as he and the Jaguars continue working toward a plan for his regular season workload.

Travis Hunter saw incremental increases in his practice workload during the spring, seeing time at receiver and cornerback. As padded practices take place, a curated plan will be implemented for the Heisman winner.

Earlier this month, it was confirmed the Jaguars would continue ramping up Hunter’s responsibilities during training camp, with certain practices involving work on both sides of the ball. After beginning strictly as a receiver, this year’s No. 2 pick has also handled cornerback drills in camp. Head coach Liam Coen recently confirmed a day-by-day approach will be taken in this case.

“You want to give him a couple days offense, a couple days defense, and then give him an opportunity to go flip-flop within the same practice and then that will kind of become the norm,” Coen said (via ESPN’s Michael DiRocco). “Every moment, every minute that he is in the building, it is accounted for and trying to make sure that we maximize his time, our time so that we can ultimately get the best outcome.”

Given the price Jacksonville paid to move up from fifth to second in the first-round order on draft night to land Hunter, his performance will be central to the evaluation of Coen and rookie general manager James Gladstone. A regular workload on offense and defense should await the Colorado product if all goes according to plan regarding his acclimation for both positions. As could be expected, no firm decision has been made yet with respect to how many snaps Hunter will play on any given week.

DiRocco has tracked the offense/defense snap split so far in camp, illustrating how certain days will contain exclusive work at one position or the other. Strong showings in that respect will allow for the team to continue including two-way days in Hunter’s summer routine. If the 22-year-old manages that workload well, he should be in store to take on a unique role come the regular season.

The Jaguars are prepared to use Travis Hunter on both sides of the ball during his rookie season, and the spring saw him spend time on offense and defense. That split in practice reps will, to no surprise, continue during training camp.

Hunter’s more natural position coming into the NFL was cornerback, so Jacksonville elected to have the Heisman winner focus primarily on receiver work after the draft. During OTAs, though, cornerback drills were added to his workload. In spring practices, Hunter worked exclusively on one side of the ball on any given day; that will change once training camp begins, though.

During an appearance on the Rich Eisen Show (video link), Jaguars exec Tony Khan noted Hunter will see reps at receiver and corner during the same padded practices. Doing so will be key in evaluating the Colorado product’s ability to handle two-way responsibilities during games, something which will in turn be critical in validating the team’s investment in him. Jacksonville traded up to No. 2 in April’s draft to select Hunter, sending the Browns a package including the team’s 2026 first-round pick in the process.

“I think there’s going to be a different game flow,” Khan said when speaking about Hunter’s workload differing from one game to the next. “You know very well that different games have different flows. He’s going to contribute and play a lot of snaps on both sides of the ball. It’s going to be really great for the Jags.”

Those comments echo what general manager James Gladstone said last month when asked about how Hunter will be used during the regular season. Understandably, no decision has been made to this point regarding how many total snaps he will spend on the field during games. A critical part of the evaluation on that front will come during training camp and the preseason, so it will be interesting to see how Hunter fares in this next phase of his acclimation process.

Travis Hunter made no secret about his intentions of playing both ways in the NFL after doing so during his decorated college career. The Heisman winner remains on track to do just that during his rookie campaign with the Jaguars.

Shortly after Jacksonville moved up to No. 2 to select Hunter, general manager James Gladstone said the majority of his work during the spring would come at the receiver position. Over time, though, the acclimation period included time and on-field work with both the offense and defense. During OTAs and minicamp, Hunter began taking reps as a corner in addition to his WR work.

During his most recent comments on the matter – an interview with Andrew Siciliano on SiriusXM radio – Gladstone clarified that Hunter was more comfortable at corner upon entry into the league, something which informed the team’s decision to focus on the receiver position at first. As the 22-year-old becomes more at ease in both capacities, though, training camp will see him continue to his expand his workload. With respect to gameday usage during the season, Gladstone confirmed a notable workload on offense and defense can be expected.

“He does not tire,” the rookie general manager said of Hunter (audio link). “He’s got a spark, he’s got the energy, the capacity from a physical standpoint to be able to be able to do it is certainly there. Certain game plans might dictate usage differently. Putting a number on [a snap count] at this stage is premature.”

Indeed, plenty of time remains for the Jaguars to finalize their depth chart at receiver and in the secondary. That process will be key in determining how much Hunter is relied upon during his rookie season. Jacksonville’s receiver room has undergone several changes this offseason and he could occupy a key role in tandem with Brian Thomas Jr. for years to come. On the other hand, Montaric Brown, Tyson Campbell and Jarrian Jones are all in place after leading the team in cornerback snaps last season. Hunter could be comparatively eased into playing time on defense as a result.

In any case, the way Jacksonville uses him will make for one of the team’s most interesting storylines over the course of the campaign. Hunter’s workload could shift from one week to the next, and his success in balancing two-way duties will no doubt be a key factor in the team’s performance.

The Jaguars made maybe the biggest move in the draft when they traded up to take Colorado athlete Travis Hunter with the No. 2 overall pick. Now, they just need to get the move over the finish line, but Ian Rapoport of NFL Network tells us that a signed contract is not expected soon. Rapoport says that he expects “Hunter will probably be the last first-rounder to sign.”

There really isn’t much room for negotiation in rookie contracts, as Rapoport points out, and this makes them notoriously difficult to negotiate. Hunter will end up making around $46.6MM with an approximately $30MM signing bonus, and Hunter can’t really do anything about those numbers. What he can do is negotiate the structure of payments like the signing bonus. Whereas quarterbacks tend to receive a good amount of their signing bonus fairly early on in their initial deals, other players usually need to negotiate those early bonuses up as much as they can.

It sounds like Hunter is using every bit of leverage he has to try to maximize his deal. While it would make sense to try and receive as much money as you can as soon as possible, this process also includes the process of trying to set up the third and fourth years of his rookie deal in a way that makes the team consider giving him an extension sooner rather than allowing him to play out the whole contract.

While Rapoport sees this deal taking some time to get done, he doesn’t anticipate a holdout from Hunter, like we’re seeing in Cincinnati with Shemar Stewart. In fact, we’ve already seen plenty from Hunter at Organized Team Activities this summer, and if he plans on playing both cornerback and wide receiver as a rookie, he’ll need as much offseason practice as he can get, which will also extend contract proceedings.

That infamous two-way ability is, perhaps, his greatest bargaining chip, as the team is essentially getting two players for the price of one. In the early days following the draft, it was reported Hunter’s primary position in Jacksonville would be wide receiver, and we saw him work out there during rookie minicamp. But so far in OTAs, Hunter has been spending most of his time at cornerback.

Hunter is going to have to be one of the hardest working players in the NFL in order to play two ways on Sundays. At the moment, though, he’s making the Jaguars front office work hard to earn his signature. He’ll almost certainly be playing with a signed contract in September, but by the look of it, that signature will only be coming on his terms.

Part of the Jaguars’ calculus in trading up to draft Travis Hunter was his ability to contribute on both sides of the ball. Despite much consternation regarding Hunter’s multi-positional ambitions, Jacksonville seems committed to fulfilling his dream of playing on both offense and defense in the NFL.

Hunter took reps exclusively at wide receiver during rookie minicamp, but began working at cornerback in OTAs, according to NFL Network’s Cameron Wolfe. Those duties included an acrobatic PBU while in coverage on Tuesday.

A video posted by the Jaguars shows Hunter matching undrafted rookie wideout Darius Lassiter step-for-step downfield before tipping the pass and nearly coming down with an interception, though the ball appears to hit the ground.

There’s no doubt that Hunter has the natural skills to play cornerback in the NFL; in fact, some scouts believed he had a higher NFL ceiling as a defender. He’s still expected to primarily play wide receiver in Jacksonville, with his time at cornerback likely dependent on his ability to carve out a defined role in the secondary.

The Jaguars are returning their top three cornerbacks in terms of 2024 snaps: Montaric Brown, Tyson Campbell, and Jarrian Jones. The departure of Ronald Darby (who retired yesterday after signing with the Texans in March) will open up some rotational snaps for Hunter, who could see the field on third downs and in other obvious passing situations.

The draft provided clarity on where Travis Hunter will begin his NFL career, with the Jaguars executing a move up the board to the No. 2 pick. That agreement with the Browns had been worked out well in advance, but it came as a surprise to many at the time and invited questions about how Jacksonville’s positional approach would play out with him.

Rookie general manager James Gladstone said last month the Jags would begin with Hunter working primarily at receiver. That news came as little surprise, but the 2024 Heisman winner made it clear during the pre-draft process he intended to continue playing both ways upon arrival in the NFL. After only taking reps at wideout during rookie minicamp, Liam Coen said Hunter will also see time at cornerback during Jacksonville’s upcoming OTAs.

“We just kind of ended up making a decision that from yesterday to today, we wanted to be able to clean up some of the things that we may have been able to miss yesterday [and] get extra reps on the offensive side of the ball and next week he’ll start to roll on defense,” the first-year head coach said following the end of rookie minicamp (via ESPN’s Michael DiRocco).

During his final season at Colorado, Hunter averaged 114 total snaps per game. That allowed him to put up noteworthy production on offense (1,258 yards, 15 touchdowns on 96 receptions) and defense (four interceptions, 11 pass deflections) en route to a slew of accolades. Gladstone has certainly not downplayed Hunter’s potential when speaking publicly about him, so a notable workload on both sides of the ball as a rookie could very well be in store. Coen noted the two-time All-American has spent time learning both playbooks, and mastering each in time for training camp would be key.

The Jags’ receiving corps will be led by 2024 Offensive Rookie of the Year finalist Brian Thomas Jr. once again in 2025, especially with Christian Kirk being traded away and Gabe Davis being released. Hunter could see notable playing time early and often as a pass-catching presence with the team looking to find a long-term answer at the receiver spot. Both members of a Thomas-Hunter tandem would be under team control for several years on their rookie deals with quarterback Trevor Lawrence attached to a $55MM-per-year pact.

Jacksonville still has Tyson Campbell on the books for one boundary corner role, and the team signed Jourdan Lewis in free agency. The latter will operate in the slot on his new team, but Hunter could earn playing time on the outside depending on how well he acclimates on defense this offseason. That process will begin to ramp up later this month at OTAs, and it will be interesting to see how Hunter develops in each capacity.