Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce was recently on an episode of “Bussin’ with the Boys” and they discussed the topic of Jacksonville Jaguars rookie WR/CB Travis Hunter. The four-time, first-team All Pro had an idea of how opposing teams should handle his two-way playmaking skills.
“Teams are going to be going after him,” Kelce said. “They’re going to try and make his day miserable…Dude, if he plays corner, they’re just going to run deep balls at him all day.”
Kelce thinks this tactic would wear him down and he’d be less effective on both sides of the ball due to fatigue.
“The wide receivers just take off on him all day,” Kelce continued. “Just to try to get him tired. Why wouldn’t you just attack him that way?”
Not everyone agrees with this theory. Former New York Jets head coach Eric Mangini was on the “Breakfast Ball” podcast the other day and says that plan isn’t going to work the way Kelce thinks it might.
“I don’t think that plan is necessarily going to work,” Mangini said. “It’s one of those things where, okay, if Travis Hunter is covering their best receiver, you’re going to tell your best receiver, ‘Hey, go run a go route all day. You’re a decoy. We’re not going to throw you the ball.’ You’re not going to know where he’s going to be defensively.”
Mangini has a point. If Hunter is covering your best receiver and you’re turning him into a guy who just runs nine routes all day, he’s essentially neutralized your best receiving threat which is what he’s out there to do anyway.
Jaguars still planning on Hunter playing both ways
Hunter didn’t play on the defensive side of the ball in OTAs, but that was for a reason. While most thought that was because they were planning on using him mainly on offense, general manager James Gladstone said that wasn’t the case at all.
“I do think there’s a little bit of a misconception in that it’s wide receiver first, corner second as much as it is the learning methodology of wide receiver through this phase, and then continuing to trickle in more defense, since that is his primary background,” Gladstone said.
“Our understanding that Travis is most naturally comfortable, most naturally in tune on the defensive side of the ball,” Gladstone continued. “We wanted to load him offensively throughout this window to ensure that by the time we got to training camp, we had a runway built up on that side because there’s so much more nuance, so much more adjustments in real time on the offensive side of the ball that would require a lot more learning.”
The current plan for training camp is that Hunter will see time on both sides of the ball. There hasn’t been this much excitement and anticipation for a Jaguars training camp since Trevor Lawrence‘s rookie year for sure.
Hunter should be handled with kid gloves
Regardless of how the Jaguars ultimately decide to use Hunter, they should be extremely careful as he’s of no use to them if he’s hurt.
“I think you want to put him in a position to be successful and not put too much on his body,” Gladstone said. “Like you said, he is a lean guy; he will get stronger over time. I think that is the highest and best use of his time, to get familiar with the defensive side and give him impactful plays on the offensive side, and not give him the full playbook.”
Head coach Liam Coen wants to utilize Hunter as much as possible, but knows the need to exercise caution.
“That’s definitely what we have to build towards for training camp and then obviously in season, knowing that during practice, he’s gonna have to do both,” Coen said in June. “He wants to do it. It’s not as if it’s something where he can’t handle [it]. He wants to go and do that more. He wants more, and that’s a good thing. But ultimately, we have to also protect him from himself at times as well and make sure we get out of this phase healthy. But that is absolutely the plan moving forward.”
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