{"id":737156,"date":"2026-02-08T03:24:21","date_gmt":"2026-02-08T03:24:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/737156\/"},"modified":"2026-02-08T03:24:21","modified_gmt":"2026-02-08T03:24:21","slug":"liam-coen-evaluates-whats-ahead-for-jaguars-travis-hunter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/737156\/","title":{"rendered":"Liam Coen evaluates what&#8217;s ahead for Jaguars&#8217; Travis Hunter"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Feb. 7, 2026, 9:20 a.m. ET<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">What&#8217;s next for Travis Hunter as he enters his second NFL season with the <a href=\"\/\" data-t-l=\":b|e|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\">Jacksonville Jaguars<\/a>?<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">Unfortunately, Hunter&#8217;s rookie season ended early due to a knee injury he sustained in practice prior to the Jaguars&#8217; Week 9 matchup with Las Vegas.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">Before then, it looked like he was poised to begin breaking out on the offensive side of the ball. In Hunter&#8217;s final game, he eclipsed the 100-yard receiving mark against the LA <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/football\/nfl\/teams\/los-angeles-rams\/343\" data-autotag=\"f489e821-d3f9-4cff-bec5-7eaa0f4b51cb\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" data-t-l=\":b|e|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\">Rams<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">His absence, however, forced the Jaguars to adjust, as Liam Coen described recently while appearing on the Pat McAfee Show.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">&#8220;I do think the best thing that could have happened was like, all right, not that he got hurt, but we got hurt, and we still, we were able to have success,&#8221; Coen said. &#8220;So now we get the privilege of going &#8212; throughout this, he&#8217;s still rehabbing, going through a whole process of rehab, getting back, but now we can go say, &#8216;Okay, where is this going to truly help us go take the next step?&#8217; Like, what&#8217;s going to actually help us get over the hump, from time allotment for him, practice schedule, playing on Sundays?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Expert NFL picks: <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" data-t-l=\":body nav (nfl)|e|auto spike click:5|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_sp_a\" href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/football\/nfl\/picks\">Exclusive betting insights only at USA TODAY.<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">Coen continued, &#8220;What&#8217;s the best for our team and for the <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/football\/nfl\/teams\/jacksonville-jaguars\/365\" data-autotag=\"0e187629-debe-49e8-9e02-83bd36ad3fcc\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" data-t-l=\":b|e|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\">Jacksonville Jaguars<\/a> to go win on Sunday and that&#8217;s what it allows us to do, is because we do have some other pieces. We have some guys that can go make plays on Sundays, and that&#8217;s what it&#8217;s all about. So we need the help, for sure. I mean, in terms of the playmaking, the corner position, we&#8217;ll use him. He&#8217;s gonna get used. It&#8217;s just a matter of, what is that dynamic?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">As GM James Gladstone said during his end-of-season press conference, the Jaguars still intend to have Hunter playing both ways this season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">Coen echoed those sentiments.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-10\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">&#8220;I think he&#8217;s absolutely going to be able to,&#8221; Coen said of Hunter playing both ways. &#8220;I do. I mean, the guy has the craziest conditioning of any athlete I&#8217;ve ever been around. He doesn&#8217;t get tired. He doesn&#8217;t sweat. It&#8217;s kind of crazy.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-11\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">&#8220;But he&#8217;s obviously been in altitude, you know? But he works his tail off. He loves football. Football, fishing. I mean, that&#8217;s what he does. So as he continues to grow, and this was a minor setback, for sure, right? But for a major comeback. That&#8217;s what it has to be. That&#8217;s his mindset.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">However, while last year Hunter was trending towards a more offensive-heavy role, this year, at lest to start, he could see more opportunities on defense, given the construction of the roster.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">At wideout, the Jaguars still have Brian Thomas Jr., Jakobi Meyers, and Parker Washington. But at cornerback, Greg Newsome and Montaric Brown are both set to be free agents.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">The team will still continue to work through what Hunter&#8217;s workload from an offensive and defensive standpoint looks like.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">&#8220;I think we were getting there,&#8221; Coen said of Hunter&#8217;s practice time. &#8220;I think we were getting there. And then he has 100 yards against the Rams, gets hurt, forced us to go, kind of make some other decisions, and it was a blessing at the end of the day for the way it played out in some ways, but we&#8217;ll look through that.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">Whether he&#8217;s playing cornerback or wide receiver, Hunter&#8217;s a natural and his playmaking abilities are evident. The Jaguars are invested in maximizing that potential.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">&#8220;I do think that if you just said, alright man, go play football without much coaching,&#8221; Coen said. &#8220;I mean, corner, he just looks the part, exactly what he is. And then, but also when you get the ball in his hands, I mean, he can make people miss, which I can&#8217;t coach. So it&#8217;s still a fine line. It&#8217;s still something we&#8217;re working through.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Feb. 7, 2026, 9:20 a.m. ET What&#8217;s next for Travis Hunter as he enters his second NFL season&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":737157,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2060],"tags":[95878,7,212,125,2401,213,6,31186,95933,95882,95936,95935,95924,95896,95888,95895,95899,95906,95883,98258,95881],"class_list":{"0":"post-737156","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville-jaguars","8":"tag-accessfree","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-jacksonville","11":"tag-jacksonville-jaguars","12":"tag-jacksonvillejaguars","13":"tag-jaguars","14":"tag-nfl","15":"tag-sstssportsnfljaguars","16":"tag-sstsnjaguars","17":"tag-tagamerican-football","18":"tag-tagjacksonville-jaguars","19":"tag-tagliam-coen","20":"tag-taglos-angeles-rams","21":"tag-tagnational-sports","22":"tag-tagnfl","23":"tag-tagnfl-hub","24":"tag-tagoverall-neutral","25":"tag-tagoverall-positive","26":"tag-tagsports-news","27":"tag-tagtravis-hunter","28":"tag-typestory"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116032875193820189","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/737156","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=737156"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/737156\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/737157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=737156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=737156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=737156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}