In Colorado, Travis Hunter never had to pick a side. Deion Sanders made sure of it. Defensive meetings were his anchor, and offensive touches were dialed up as needed—packages built to showcase his flair without forcing him to master two full playbooks. That system worked because it revolved around him, a luxury no NFL franchise grants even the most dazzling rookie. The Jaguars don’t get to rewrite the league calendar or compromise their schemes to fit one man’s dual ambition.
The NFL’s collective bargaining agreement only makes that gap wider. With padded practices capped (14 per season) and classroom time rationed (90 minutes), there isn’t room for hybrid experiments on the fly. Veteran analyst Greg Cosell put it bluntly: “He (Hunter) can’t sit in two meetings at the same time.” In Jacksonville, Hunter isn’t just learning new techniques; he’s shedding the old comfort of a college plan built just for him. That’s what makes his task daunting.
As Albert Breer of Sports Illustrated noted, the Jags are building Hunter’s baseline first on offense and then on defense, which is quite the opposite of the scheme Coach Prime used at Colorado. During his couple of years at Boulder, the Jaguars’ second overall pick mostly practiced and studied as a defensive player (cornerback). The guy spent the majority of his time learning defensive schemes and preparing to cover receivers. The reason?
“That’s because it’s much easier to have things built in for a player without fully integrating him on offense than it is on defense—the offensive coaches would put in packages for Hunter and fill in the blanks by signaling in routes to him from the sideline,” Breer noted. Of course, as Breer explained, the team could definitely choose other ways for this. But in the NFL, defense isn’t something you just drop in and figure out on the fly.
Every week, defenders have to study hours of tape on each opponent—formations, tendencies, split-second tells. If the Jaguars expect Hunter to be a full-time starter at corner, that’s where most of his preparations have to go. Otherwise, things could go south if the rookie walks into Sunday unprepared. To make it interesting, the head coach, Liam Coen, revealed that the rookie wasn’t practicing both roles in a single day during OTAs. The Jaguars are utilizing his dual role in the team’s practices.
How are offense and defense practices working for Travis Hunter?
Ahead of the 2025 NFL draft, Travis Hunter was expected to be one of the top five picks. When the draft weekend came, the Jaguars traded up a few spots to grab him with the second overall pick. And get this, even since the Jags drafted him, the Jags are using Hunter on both sides of the ball. Offensive and defensive.
Hunter spent the first three weeks of this spring, after arriving in Jacksonville, to learn Coen’s offensive scheme. And it made sense. Coen is an offensive coach and will be the Jags’ play caller in his rookie season. At the OTAs, the guy primarily practiced a wideout, followed by defensive drills, gradually working him back into cornerback. “We won’t put him in that situation to have him do that, although I’m sure he’d probably want to,” the head coach confirmed that Hunter won’t practice on both sides on the same day during OTAs.
Then came the minicamp. Travis Hunter continued alternating roles by day, finally training as both WR and CB in the same session during the final practice. The rookie hauled in 3 catches and was targeted just once in zone coverage, immediately making the stop. Coen praised his physicality and noted that “He’s (Hunter) a really smart football player. He’s picked up the system really quickly.”
Taken all together, Travis Hunter spent the first three weeks in Jacksonville practicing on the offensive side of the ball. And yes, learning Coen’s offensive scheme. And after that, he gradually started practicing and learning the defensive side of the ball, unlike his days at Colorado.
The post Travis Hunter Has to Forget Deion Sanders & Colorado as Jaguars Rookie Faces Impossible Task – Report appeared first on EssentiallySports.