Will Travis Hunter Always Play Offense & Defense In The NFL? | Jaguars Coach Liam Coen w/ Pat McAfee

Will Travis Hunter Always Play Offense & Defense In The NFL? | Jaguars Coach Liam Coen w/ Pat McAfee

And let’s talk about Travis Hunter’s game. Yeah, he is awesome. I mean, he is a spectacle. Unreal on the offensive side. Now, Grant, I think the orange or I’m sorry, the pink gloves and the pink cleats, I like that, by the way, breast cancer awareness October. Uh, that used to be like something that was kind of celebrated everywhere. But for him to be uh as spectacular as he and once again, it might be the shoes and it might be the gloves that had hurt certainly cuz he’s flying around and everything. Anytime he gets the ball, chaos on the other side. I mean, he’s he’s making people miss bad bad and then there’s full chaos from the other team. Defensive side, what did we see from him? I saw obviously there’s a couple plays they have him in big positions. Travis Kelsey gets hit in the face with the ball with Travis Hunter on him. If Travis Kelce is lined up on Travis Hunter, that means Jacksonville has a lot of faith in Travis Hunter. What did you see from their decision-m on defense side of the ball and also Travis on the offensive side? Is that seemingly is only going to continue to grow? Yeah, yesterday on the show leading up to the game, I was like, you know what, man? I think we all kind of were getting to the point where number two pick, we want to see him have a bigger impact, play him more, make him major, more on one side of the ball and maybe sprinkle him in. But after seeing him last night, you let Travis Hunter do what the hell Travis Hunter wants to do. As long as he can stay healthy, that play right there, the deep ball was special. But this play right here, you could just dump the the the ball to a guy in space and he could make NFL players look ridiculous, that’s when you know you have a special athlete. And then you see him on third and three lining up on a big guy like Travis Kelce who you know is probably going to be a target and then make a play. Yeah, some people wanted to flag, but this is a bang bang play in the NFL, especially on third and short. So, I like to see it for 12 to be all over the field. Kind of be that chest piece when you need him in these big time moments in the big time matchups. I believe he played like uh around like 70 snaps, something like that. 60 something snaps on both sides of the ball. So, it’s special to watch it. He’s truly a unicorn out there to show up on both sides of the ball and compete and have an impact on a high level. I mean, that’s what you want if you’re Stoner and Liam Cohen in that building. We’ll have the head coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars, Liam Cohen, joining us here in about a minute or two to certainly chitchat about how he’s been dealing with the reps and managing and maintaining whatever athlete we have here. This might be greatest athlete of all time. BA, what are your thoughts on it? Obviously, the experiment of a guy playing on both sides of the field has been talked about since the beginning of football. I mean, and way back in the day, I’m sure there was a lot of guys that actually did it, but obviously not at the speed and the reps now at wide receiver and corner would be. Does he have a chance at it from what you’ve seen here early? And how would you manage that throughout the week? Yeah, definitely. I think the biggest thing is the learning the number of plays and the number of coverages in the NFL versus college. You know, you may have three or four coverages in college, you learn them in training camp, it’s over. But now you got different game plan every week. To learn both game plans, offense and defense, is the hardest part. Now, let’s keep it simple for him. He’s going to play defense. Let’s play a little dude coverage. You got this dude. Let’s play. That’s it. All right. So, let’s keep it simple. And offensively, just keep feeding this guy the rock, man. He’s He’s spectacular. Connor, you’ve been saying for a few weeks like, “Hey, uh, if you guys haven’t been watching the Jacksonville Jaguars, Travis Hunter is electric. He’s on the offensive side. Now, on the defense, it’s not as easy to see cuz every play isn’t scripted for us to see what the hell each player on the defensive side is doing as it is on the offensive side. When Travis Hunter makes a catch on the offense side, it’s easier to see. when he’s on defense, he’s not a part of a play. It’s like, well, did he have good coverage? Did he have good leverage? I have no idea unless we’re watching the old 22 in real time. But you talked about his electricity factor, and I think the world got to see it last night. Love the gloves. Sure. Love the cleats. Love that every time he has the ball, he’s trying to do something, and it’s like his mentality, his energy, everything is like infectious, I would assume. Yeah. And that it radiates through the screen. It truly does. Like even when he’s making plays, just he’s always smiling. I mean, he covered Xavier Worthy perfectly and then he basically limped off. Not not because he was hurt or anything. He was probably, you know, a cramp. It was hot. It’s awesome. He’s playing both ways. Uh I think it’s stupid he does. I’ll be completely honest. Just cuz like look what he does when he gets the football, right? He had three catches. If he plays, you know, the entire game on offense, does he have eight catches? And on defense, he is incredible, right? And you know, he locked down Travis Kelce, but if he were to be covering Travis Kelce the whole night, is Travis Kelce scoring a touchdown. Like the Travis Hunter usage and I think last night was the most a lot of us had seen him play since when he was at Colorado. He’s spectacular. I mean, it the gloves and the cleats were certainly a part of it, but anytime he gets the ball, it’s like, holy there anything could happen here. And then on defensive side, you guys have enough faith in him to be lining up against GOAT, first ballot hall of famer, and Travis Kelce. There’s conversations about will he be able to play full-time on both sides of the ball. How are you gonna manage that? It’s a lot of obviously intel that he has to learn, let alone managing the body and everything like that. And on the offensive side, we see that and we think there’s not a lot of people that could do that. Why are we wasting any time on defensive side? But then you guys are probably saying, we put him on Travis on third down. There’s not a lot of people that could do what he could do on the defensive side. How are you managing it? Where are we? And there’s a story going around uh that you were a part of. Actually, Eli said something about maybe he didn’t practice offense in college. If you would like to clarify all that type of into one combo, we’d like to let you know. He’s a special talent from our sites. How are you guys handling it all and what’s the plan? Yeah, I mean, it’s been a work in progress that uh each week you’re continuing to look at how to improve the schedule, the operation. I think we’re in a good place right now um with how he spends his time both on the offense and defensive side during the week. Um, and look, he he made the most of some unbelievable opportunities last night and really it was starting over the last few weeks. We just, you know, didn’t connect on a few. He’s been open a few times or just whatever happened, it didn’t come to fruition. And last night to see him go out uh and make the plays with the ball in his hands, um, run after catch, the energy that he brings, really, really cool to see. And then the defense, you know, as much as we can get them out there and get them in positions to be successful, we want to keep doing. So, what’s the the the tap on this? I I can’t tell you. I think it’s only getting better and better as we go. I’m really excited to see what it’s going to look like week in and week out. It’s somebody we got to continue to get the ball to and getting the ball in his hands. him and BT had great nights last night, made huge plays for us. And then uh he he practiced on defense at uh excuse me, on offense at Colorado. It was just primarily defense. Got it. And then that’s when he would go out, you know, look at the signals from the sideline, which is that’s what they did. They were a no huddle operation. So I think it was he practiced on offense, just not very much. It was way more on defense. He got in the walkthroughs on offense. And look, they used him and made him a Heisman Trophy winner. He did that on his own. He did that with that help of Colorado. We’re hoping to continue to do that so he can be the best version of himself. So he was primary defense with offensive packages basically whenever he was at Colorado is kind of what you’re saying. And yeah, he was just a little bit more primary on defense with I think the meeting time, the time allocated. Um, and they caught him up more in the walkthroughs and maybe a practice and or a period or two during the day uh in practice uh on offense. So, he’s gotten the work at both. It was just a little bit more defense than offense there. Um, and where we’ve been kind of flipping that and doing more offense than defense from a uh just development standpoint of playing the receiver position and what goes into not just a formation and emotion, but reading coverage on a play or going and executing and being at the right spot at the right time. Uh, he’s getting better and better and we’re excited about what’s in store. So, Coach Prime obviously has a lot of NFL guys that have played in uh on his coaching staff. And I think that’s what all NFL guys asked immediately upon that Travis Hunter is going to play on both sides of the bowl. Well, how’s he going to spend his meeting time? That is literally what everybody that’s ever played in the NFL or has been in a building like how is he going to manage that? So, everybody’s talking about like on the field, but what about like install and everything else that takes place? So, I I appreciate you guys saying like we he’s a weapon on offense. we got to get him in here. But it sounds like on the defensive side whenever there’s he has a package for defense. Maybe it might change game to game. Is that something we’re we’re just assuming there now at this point? Yeah, he he’s basically camping knows like all right, Travis is in these are more of my priority calls. Try to stick with more of these. It’s not just necessarily a package. It’s just all right trying to be in a good area of doing what he does best or what he knows best as well. um whether that’s playing cloud or 3D for McMahon and just trying to simplify some of that. But he has to know a ton of the calls. He has to know all the red zone calls, the situational third down calls. Um he’s got to know a lot of each game plan, guys. I mean, this the amount of time that is spent throughout the day when he’s not in um a meeting on offense, he’s definitely with the defense or vice versa. There’s not a minute of his time throughout the day that isn’t being utilized during practice, during special teams, he’s doing indie on offense or defense. It’s it’s full go. He’s got a lot of work to do each and every week and so do his coaches and um it’s getting better and better. What a special talent, man. It’s incredible. Honestly, just you you talk about that tough down there at the bottom. It says mentally and physically. Obviously, to get through all that, you got to be in incredible shape. You got to be a phenomenal athlete, but mentally that can all be draining. Ladies and gentlemen, it’s time for BS or no BS with BA. And the first one here is about Travis Hunter. Ladies and gentlemen, BS or no BS is when BA gives us uh whether or not a statement of fact is or no Let’s get to the first one here. It’s about Travis Hunter. Travis Hunter should play both ways. No question asked. Now, there’s certainly somebody that said this somewhere, so we didn’t want to give the the proper credit to the quote because it’s certainly coming from somewhere. Travis Hunter should play both ways, no questions asked. Is that BS or no BS at this point? BA, that is definitely no Okay. It’s just how much more can he play? I mean, just don’t overload him because if you’re thinking in the National Football League, you’re playing too slow. Yep. All right. If you got to think, you’re you’re lo you’re losing. So, keep it really simple for him where he can just use all that god-given talent and play so fast. Okay. So, you’re thinking that’s no BS. Uh Debbutz, do you agree at this point too after what you were saying yesterday? Yesterday I didn’t agree. Today after watching him in prime time like it’s like yeah you you get him on the field as much as he can handle. He is an ultimate chess piece that we haven’t seen. Let him do what the hell he wants to do. AJ final thoughts on this being no BS. We’re letting him do are we going to change this answer in four five weeks as the season continues? Or is this just in the moment answer? AJ? No. I I’m I agree this is this is no BS because I I like what Deep said Liam saying. He has a position on offense. He knows like this is your rule. You study this. You know, first you learn this inside out and then you will slowly start to learn what everybody else around you is doing. BA, how difficult do you think it is for Liam though as like you being an offensive guy like knowing, hey, he can help us out on both sides of the ball, but like I want him on offense for the majority of the game because we’ve we’ve seen it early. There are only a handful of guys in the NFL who are legitimate threats to score every time they touch the ball and he’s one of them. Like, so how difficult is that in the back of your head when you are an offensive guy? It’s like, well, you know what? Maybe let’s not send him out there on defense this possession because I want him fresh on offense. Yeah, the kid is in such fabulous shape. You know, I don’t think stamina is a problem. He’s obviously shown that at Colorado. He played 150 plays in one game. Yes. And uh so it’s more mental and as long as he doesn’t slow down mentally, I’m using him as much as I possibly can. Keep him at one. Don’t ask him to learn all three wide receiver positions. That’s two other guys jobs. You learn your job on offense and like Liam said, running routes but reading coverage. When you start adjusting routes in college, you don’t adjust that much. Either take the middle or you break in. It’s that simple. But he’s learning so much how to run routes and be effective at it. And but like you said earlier, get the damn thing to him quick. Let him run with it. And the more he knows, the better he knows it, the more confident he is, which goes back to what he talk about. Yeah. He’s playing faster. He feels like he’s not lining up. He’s not asking people where to go. So I think he probably wants to learn this as much as possible. But it only happens as it happens, you know, and his vibes always being immaculate through all this. He’s a good one. Travis, you’re a good one, bro.

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