The Jacksonville Jaguars began the unique challenge of preparing Travis Hunter to play both offense and defense as their rookie minicamp opened over the weekend.
Hunter began minicamp working at the wide receiver position. First-year Jaguars coach Liam Coen provided insight into when interested parties might see the rookie at cornerback during a Saturday media availability.
‘Yeah, he’ll be able to get integrated next week on the defensive side of the ball,’ Coen told reporters Saturday, per NFL Network.
Why did the Jaguars begin with Hunter working at receiver for multiple sessions? Jacksonville’s goal was to see Hunter make strides at the position before also testing him at cornerback.
‘We just kind of ended up making a decision that from yesterday to today we wanted to be able to clean up some of the things that we may have been able to miss yesterday, get extra reps on the offensive side of the ball, and next week he’ll start to roll on defense,’ Coen explained.
Many expect Hunter to play receiver primarily during his first NFL season, which may also have played a part in Jacksonville’s decision.
Hunter appears to be on board with the Jaguars’ plan. He said he was ‘getting used to’ learning two NFL playbooks but acknowledged learning Jacksonville’s offense was the more challenging task.
‘It’s just a lot of different types of calls, but other than that, the defense is pretty easy,’ Hunter said. ‘You’ve just got to get used to the offense.’
Coen seems confident Hunter won’t have any issues picking things up on both sides of the ball after winning the Heisman Trophy while doing so at Colorado.
‘He’s a football-smart guy,’ Coen said of Hunter. ‘The game makes sense to him. And so now it’s just about putting in that time, that extra time that he’s going to have to do in order to be successful to play even one side of the ball at this level. So he knows what’s cut out for him coming up.’