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The hands of the Jacksonville Jaguars front office might be sore from all the high-fives they’ve gotten recently. And there’s no doubt they drafted a special talent. However, here is why Travis Hunter won't meet expectations with the Jaguars after his standout college career.
Jacksonville traded away its Nos. 5 and 36 picks in the 2025 NFL Draft. The Jaguars also dealt their first-round pick in 2026. For their troubles, they received the much-hyped Hunter. He was considered a top-five talent as both a cornerback and a wide receiver.
But in the NFL, there are no guarantees of success. And Hunter has a couple of things working against him.
CB/WR Travis Hunter isn’t the most physical specimen
![The Jacksonville Jaguars’ first-round pick, Colorado Buffaloes wide receiver and defensive back Travis Hunter, left, answers questions during a press conference Friday, March 25, 2025 at Miller Electric Center in Jacksonville, Fla. with General Manager James Gladstone, right. [Doug Engle/Florida Times-Union]](https://wp.clutchpoints.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Jacksonville-Jaguars-WR-Travis-Hunter.jpg)
OK. Fine. Some of the best receivers in the game played over 1,000 snaps in 2024, according to fantasypros.com. That includes Ja’Marr Chase, Justin Jefferson, Amon-Ra St. Brown. If Hunter is going to be an elite wide receiver, he doesn’t have to play 1,000 snaps, but he can’t pick and choose if he’s a main part of the offensive game plan.
As for playing cornerback, the top end at that position played over 1,100 snaps. That’s guys like Mike Jackson Sr., Jaylon Jones, and Deveon Witherspoon.
Suffice it to say that these guys walked off the field on a given Sunday, tired and bruised. Here’s what Lance Zierlein wrote about Hunter playing both ways in college, according to nfl.com.
“Hunter was playing twice as much as his fellow prospects, and he lacks ideal frame size at both receiver and cornerback,” Zierlein wrote.
How much will the Jaguars use Travis Hunter?
So, would the Jaguars put Hunter on the field for 2,100 snaps for the season? Of course not. So the pick-and-choose method would likely come on defense.
But let’s say he’s 900 snaps on offense and 450 on defense. That’s still more snaps than any player in the NFL in 2024. Carolina Panthers safety Xavier Woods totaled 1,218 to lead all players. Woods has a more compact frame at 5-11 and 200 pounds. Plus, he’s a smart eight-year veteran. And he’s delivering the blows, not absorbing them as Hunter will do on offense.
And check out Hunter’s weaknesses, according to nfl.com.
“He’s leggy and loses some ground when transitioning from his pedal, and he needs to prove he can handle the rigors of NFL run support,” Lance Zierlein wrote. “(He) must prove he can compete against higher weight classes. Committed blocks stick to him on the perimeter.”
Also, Hunter brings a playing style to the NFL that might get devoured.
“(His) high-flying playing style leads to heavy contact,” Zierlein wrote.
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Also, he lacks something that is a must-have for top-tier wide receivers.
“(Hunter has) average toughness with his run after the catch,” Zierlein wrote.
So here’s a guy coming into the NFL as a rookie with an idea he’s going to play a big boy’s game on both sides of the football. And it just stands to reason he will be twice as likely to get injured and miss multiple games as opposed to playing fewer snaps and one side of the ball.
Another thing that makes him a candidate for problems is meshing on both sides of the football in a given game. Athletic talent matters, but so does scheme and adjustments. If Hunter isn’t playing full time on defense, it seems like the team would need to limit the creativity of its coverages when he’s on the field. How many times do defenses get burned with blown coverages during the course of an NFL season? The incidents of blown coverages would be more likely with Hunter playing spot duty.
That generational talent thing will haunt Travis Hunter
Remember that the Jaguars quarterback, Trevor Lawrence, carried the tag of “generational talent.” It’s a term that gets used WAY too often by the NFL talking heads.
Let’s look at one definition:
“A ‘generational talent’ refers to an individual whose exceptional abilities and impact are so remarkable that their level of dominance is rarely, if ever, seen again in a generation,” according to AI Overview. “It suggests a player or athlete whose skill set is so unique and influential that they fundamentally change the landscape of their sport.”
As the No. 1 overall pick by the Jaguars, Lawrence has a career record of 22-38. And he’s never thrown more than 25 touchdown passes in a season. Do you think Lawrence had fundamentally changed the landscape of the sport? Besides that, when Lawrence came into the league, Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen, and Lamar Jackson were already established as “generational talents” at the position. How many can there be? At some point, the words “rarely seen” can’t apply because there are so many of them.
And here comes Hunter into the same situation. Jefferson and Chase have already established themselves as guys the NFL hasn’t seen in quite some time. So, Hunter looks a lot more like Lawrence in this type of comparison.
There’s a caveat for Travis Hunter
The Jaguars could pull up their big-boy pants and decide to play Hunter on just one side of the football. But if they do, he’s no longer a generational talent. Remember, the consistent mantra described him as a top-five talent at either wide receiver or cornerback. He wasn’t considered the No. 1 talent overall.
Sure, the Titans could have picked him at No. 1, and nobody would have blinked. But the uniqueness of his talent comes from being able to compete at the NFL level on either side of the ball.
The best thing that could happen for Hunter is for the Jaguars to install him at WR2. He could run routes on the opposite side of Brian Thomas Jr., and the Jaguars could potentially terrify opposing defenses. It’s possible Lawrence could finally put together a 30-touchdown-pass season. Hunter would have a better chance of staying healthy and playing in all 17 games.
