{"id":245596,"date":"2025-07-29T14:59:12","date_gmt":"2025-07-29T14:59:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/245596\/"},"modified":"2025-07-29T14:59:12","modified_gmt":"2025-07-29T14:59:12","slug":"ryan-clark-warns-jaguars-travis-hunter-against-overuse-as-two-way-player-reveals-optimal-role","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/245596\/","title":{"rendered":"Ryan Clark warns Jaguars, Travis Hunter against overuse as two-way player, reveals optimal role"},"content":{"rendered":"

Playing both ways continues to be the plan for WR\/CB Travis Hunter<\/a> coming into this season as a rookie in the NFL<\/a>. Determining what the looks like for him, though, will be important for the Jaguars to do, says Ryan Clark at ESPN.<\/p>\n

\u2018Get Up\u2019 discussed the two-way plans for Hunter with Jacksonville on Tuesday morning. ESPN\u2019s Jeff Darlington confirmed to Mike Greenberg to start that conversation that playing the No. 2 overall pick<\/a> at wide receiver on offense and cornerback on defense is still the plan for the team this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cJames (Gladstone), the GM, said, when they drafted him, the reason we\u2019re doing that is because it fixes the math. It gives you an extra player,\u201d Darlington said. \u201cThey drafted him with the intention. They went up to get him with the intention of doing that. That is absolutely the plan<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

With that, Clark did go on to question \u201cthe math\u201d a bit. That\u2019s because he doesn\u2019t think Hunter playing every single snap on both sides of the ball would add up to him being worth a whole two players.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s possible for one player to be one and a half players. I don\u2019t necessarily know if it\u2019s possible for him to be two players,\u201d Clark said.<\/p>\n

The point for Clark was still that it may be just too much for Hunter to try and be impactful at two positions full-time in the NFL. Because of that, he thinks Jacksonville needs to determine where he can be most effective for them and, once they do, then find how they can utilize him in special situations on the other side of the football than that primary one.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got to figure out where he can go be the best every single snap and then filter him in at the other position in important moments where he can make a difference,\u201d said Clark.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhatever they decide is the best position to be his primary one, then that\u2019s on them, even if you want to move him around based on game plan where he plays most. But asking Travis Hunter to, let\u2019s say, go out and, you know \u2013 \u2018Hey, Travis Hunter. We want you to go out and guard Terry McLaurin<\/a>\u2018 and then telling him \u2018Now, we want you to go out and beat Marshon Lattimore<\/a>\u2018 every snap. That\u2019s a very difficult thing to do. Go guard AJ Brown<\/a>, now go beat Quinyon Mitchell<\/a>. That\u2019s tough,\u201d Clark continued. \u201cBut, if you tell him, hey, we want you to go guard DeVonta Smith<\/a> or go guard AJ Brown, and then on third down or eleven personnel or in two-minute or in red zone, you\u2019re going to play wide receiver? I believe that\u2019s something Travis Hunter can accomplish and do it at a high level.\u201d<\/p>\n

To that point, Clark compared it to the play of one of the greatest two-way athletes ever in Shohei Ohtani<\/a> in the MLB<\/a>. Ohtani, albeit in a different sport, isn\u2019t asked to bat and pitch at his elite level in every single game as he swings in each outing but only pitches every few matchups. That\u2019s the kind of balance that Clark is looking for with Hunter.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, think about Shohei Ohtani, right, who, right now to me, is the greatest athlete on Earth. We don\u2019t ask him to pitch every single game. They don\u2019t ask him to play a field position every single game. What they tell him is go be one of the best hitters in all of the world every time we take the diamond and then, every four to five outings, I want you to go be one the best pitchers,\u201d explained Clark. \u201cThat\u2019s the same thing we\u2019ve got to do with Travis Hunter.\u201d<\/p>\n

This debate will continue on and on, especially once we see Hunter actually try to do this over his debut in the National Football League. Still, if anyone will want to prove that he can actually do this game in and game out as a pro, it\u2019s Hunter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Playing both ways continues to be the plan for WR\/CB Travis Hunter coming into this season as a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":245597,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2060],"tags":[7,212,125,2401,213,6,12987],"class_list":{"0":"post-245596","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville-jaguars","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-jacksonville","10":"tag-jacksonville-jaguars","11":"tag-jacksonvillejaguars","12":"tag-jaguars","13":"tag-nfl","14":"tag-travis-hunter-22-collins-hill"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114937119802575388","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245596\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/245597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}