Jacksonville Jaguars’ second overall pick, Travis Hunter, played on both sides of the ball during Thursday’s final minicamp practice.
Jacksonville Jaguars’ second overall pick, Travis Hunter, played on both sides of the ball during Thursday’s final minicamp practice.
Up to this point, Hunter has either spent the entirety of his practices on the offensive side of the ball or the defensive side, depending on what the plan was for that day. Thursday, however, was the first time that the media had seen Hunter play both ways on the same day.
As John Shipley of Jaguars on SI would recall in his minicamp takeaways article, Hunter spent most of Thursday’s practice at wide receiver. But during the final period of the shortened practice, Hunter took off his teal jersey and put on the white defensive jersey.
“This was a quick-paced team drill setting that saw the team’s depth players and rookies get a lot of reps in, so he saw plenty of meaningful snaps on defense despite being on offense for most of the day,” Shipley wrote.
As Liam Coen and James Gladstone described after the NFL draft, Hunter was going to be onboarded at the receiver position, so that is where the bulk of his time has been spent during practices over the last month-plus.
Hunter has been learning the defensive playbook, terminology, and has been in the meetings since he arrived in Jacksonville. But as we’ve gotten deeper into offseason programs, his presence on defense has continued to expand on the practice field.
Once in-season, Hunter practicing on both sides of the ball on the same day will be the norm, and as Coen mentioned recently, once training camp arrives, that will be a much more regular occurrence as well.
“He just has a wealth of talent, and he’s a super intelligent guy, which makes it super fun,” Anthony Campanile said. “He’s really quick on the uptake. So he’s a fun guy to coach, to be around. I know his position coaches love coaching him, and it’s pretty impressive to watch a guy do that.”