{"id":882826,"date":"2026-05-05T05:03:16","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T05:03:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/882826\/"},"modified":"2026-05-05T05:03:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T05:03:16","slug":"jaguars-historic-46-million-two-way-stud-named-prime-breakout-candidate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/882826\/","title":{"rendered":"Jaguars’ historic $46 million two-way stud named prime breakout candidate"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jaguars’ historic $46 million two-way stud named prime breakout candidate<\/a> originally appeared on The Sporting News<\/a>. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The future is bright for the Jacksonville Jaguars<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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After back-to-back disappointing seasons, Jacksonville enjoyed one of its best campaigns in recent memory, securing 13 regular-season wins and getting a home playoff game.<\/p>\n

The Jaguars lost a heartbreaker to the Buffalo Bills<\/a> in the AFC Wild Card round, but there\u2019s no question the franchise is headed in the right direction.<\/p>\n

Judging by the fact that Fox Sports\u2019 Greg Auman<\/a> believes that the Jaguars\u2019 22-year-old historic two-way stud (he became the first player in Pro Football Focus history to record the highest-graded rookies list in a single week last season) is a prime breakout candidate for the 2026-27 campaign, it\u2019s safe to say he\u2019s also under the impression that Jacksonville is in good shape moving forward.<\/p>\n

\u201c(Travis) Hunter’s debut season was disappointing on both sides of the ball (wide receiver and cornerback),\u201d Auman wrote Monday. \u201cHe had 28 catches for 298 yards and a single touchdown at receiver and had even less production at corner, posting 15 tackles and zero interceptions. After seven games, his rookie season ended early with a knee injury, watching as the Jaguars finished 13-4 and won a division title.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cHunter’s on course to be fully recovered by the start of training camp, and it should be a simpler second season for him. It remains to be seen how much work he’ll get on offense \u2014 the Jaguars traded for Jakobi Meyers<\/a> during last season and gave him a lucrative extension, and they’ve held off on trading third-year receiver Brian Thomas Jr.<\/a>, with Parker Washington<\/a> enjoying a breakout season last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cHunter should be an every-down corner, and that side of the ball should be his focus and the best chance for him to shine. Jacksonville let Greg Newsome<\/a> leave in free agency and didn’t draft a corner, setting Hunter up for a central role.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hunter is one of the most intriguing players in the league. It\u2019s not every day that NFL fans are fortunate enough to witness a player contribute on both ends of the field and possess the physical tools\/traits necessary to do it at a high level.<\/p>\n

As Auman noted, Hunter\u2019s rookie campaign with the Jaguars didn\u2019t go as planned, as a significant lower-body injury limited him to just seven games. That said, a healthy version of Hunter in 2026-27 should be exhilarating to watch from start to finish, as he\u2019s bound to excel in at least one of his specialties during his sophomore campaign.<\/p>\n

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More NFL:\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jaguars’ historic $46 million two-way stud named prime breakout candidate originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":882827,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2060],"tags":[4133,53,7,13958,7987,212,125,2401,213,6913,6,8466,410],"class_list":["post-882826","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville-jaguars","tag-brian-thomas-jr","tag-buffalo-bills","tag-football","tag-greg-auman","tag-greg-newsome","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-jaguars","tag-jacksonvillejaguars","tag-jaguars","tag-jakobi-meyers","tag-nfl","tag-parker-washington","tag-pro-football-focus"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116520222929458511","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/882826","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=882826"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/882826\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/882827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=882826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=882826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=882826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}