Should Hunter be playing both sides of the ball?
Chris Simms and Travis Hunter react to James Gladstone's comments on Travis Hunter's two-way outlook, questioning where the former Colorado Buffalo is best suited with the Jacksonville Jaguars.
Video Transcript
All right, let's go around the league with some NFL news.
A guy that has been in the news for a lot of different reasons is James Gladstone, the GM of the Jags.
We got to hear him talk about Travis Hunter on the Rich Eisen Show.
Take a listen to this.
Are we done with the two-way with him or not?
Absolutely not.
No, he is, he is set to play both sides of the ball.
The- Okay the piece that I think we can expect to see is actually an uptick in, in corner usage, right?
Last year it, it was a higher volume, higher percentage of wide receiver usage than it was corner.
I think we can expect to see that corner, percentile and count go up as we move forward.
That's not to say anything impacts his availability and usage on offense, it just means that that cornerback usage will increase.
Why do you choose that side of the ball to increase rather than the other?
it's not to say that it won't increase on offense either, but it was lower on defensive side this past season.
We also have a different defensive cornerback room, and the bodies are, are different than they were a year ago.
Our roster construction is different than it was a year ago, so it's more fitting to slot him in at corner in a different way than it was, at this time last year, or even as the season progressed.
This is interesting.
It is.
This is a great combo, really.
For a lot of reasons.
Uh-huh.
I, part of me, just human nature, feels like they, they don't wanna wave the white flag that he's not a two-way player.
Uh-huh.
And I don't, I'm not I don't know that.
No, no, I'm, I'm- And it's an assumption.
I, yeah.
It's just human nature.
Yeah.
I'm like, man, they, they don't wanna wa- 'cause you gave up a lot- Gave a lot because he's a two-way player.
This has gotta work.
It's, it's- Right?
Somehow.
Somehow.
Yeah.
That's my first initial thought.
I, I'm, I'm with you there.
I'm, I mean, it, there's no doubt.
They, like you said, they traded up quarterback type of assets to Like, you were getting a franchise quarterback to go get him.
So something's gotta work.
The, that's the big thing.
And, you know, I get a sense, too, to play off of what you kinda said right there, you know, there was the talk a little bit earlier in the off-season about we're just gonna try to focus him on one side of the ball.
He came out on social media within 24 hours and, like, said, "Said who?"
I just wonder if some of this, too, was like they realized, wait.
And they, he makes comments I think further on that Travis wants to play both sides.
Yeah.
He goes into more depth about that, right?
It's his dream.
It's his dream.
I just wonder if they tried to in the start of the off-season go, "Let's see if we can push it to one side," and then they got pushback from him a little bit.
Mm-hmm.
And now they're like, "Okay, all right.
We'll, we'll readjust.
We'll try to figure out how we wanna do this here with making him happy with also making us happy and what we need as a football team."
Now, the easiest thing, right?
So here you go.
Great.
Right.
Here you go, Pete.
This is what I was referring to, and this was what was coming out just a few weeks ago.
And so I just wonder within that, you know, he talks to the GM, he talks to the head coach and is like, "No, no, no.
You know, no disrespect, but I wanna play both ways still.
Like, I wanna do it."
Yeah.
"I wanna do it."
And so yeah, they'll make that happen.
But I think we hit it a little bit.
One, their receiver position is damn good right now.
He's not as needed there.
I mean, it's, it's worked out in a way with that trade for Jakobi Meyers where you go him, Parker Washington, and Brian Thomas Jr., and then their tight end play, and you go, damn, they, they got some weapons there, right?
Right.
So he's not, they're not desperate there.
Now you look at the cornerback situation and you can go, yeah, there's, they're, they're a little more desperate over there.
Not to say it's bad, I'm not trying to say that, but at the same time, no.
Are there household names and big time all-pro type of DBs there?
No.
They don't have a number one.
They don't have a number one.
That's, that's it to me.
That's exactly right.
They don't have a number one.
Their best player, I think, is the safety in Antonio Johnson in the whole secondary.
So that to me, if you're team building and wanna make the team better, that's where it makes most sense to put him as we sit here right now.
Yeah.
And if he can develop into a number one corner, I mean, finding a number one corner in the NFL is really difficult, where you start to justify, not completely, but somewhat justify the move, and we go back to being a sub-package player on offense.
It's, it's a delicate situation.
it's really, really tricky.
They gotta make him great at one thing first.
Right, right.
And- We didn't draft him at number two to have a really average player at both sides of the ball- No, that's- and a really average contributor, right?
So within that, here, 'cause you're awesome at looking this stuff up, how much man and zone does Jacksonville play?
I'll get that for you.
Right?
And that's another thing, too.
You know, the, I, I, I always questioned Hunter as a true island man-to-man corner.
You know that coming out in the draft.
I just said, "Hey, he's really good at corner," but to me it was more like honey badger.
We can move him in certain places.
He could play a little corner, he could play a little nickel, he could do this, but I wouldn't want him locking down the other team's number one receiver.
I don't think Travis Hunter is explosively fast enough to be that guy.
Now, it'd be my assessment that they, they are more of a zone defense as a whole.
By far.
By far, right?
I don't have the exact numbers.
But, but- It's, it's a jarring difference it's a jarring difference.
I'll pull it up in a sec.
That, that's what I thought, and that's why I wanted you to- Yep bring it up because m- my, my intuition told me no.
I know Anthony Campana.
You know I was watching this Jaguar defense.
I felt like they were probably 70% of the time playing zone.
To me, that makes sense too because- I would go higher.
Is it, is it 80?
I mean, they, they played cover one or- Yeah zero under 20% of the time.
Wow.
Wow.
Yeah.
That's jarring.
Yeah.
Well, one- They played cover three 31% of the time, which is not The NFL has gotten away from more cover three.
Totally.
So th- that's, all right, so that, that's where they need him, so s- hopefully they can play a little bit more man to man, even though that's not what he's suited for in my opinion.
Maybe he proves me wrong.
I do know he's suited for instincts, reading coverages, seeing plays, breaking on the ball because he's reading the quarterback's eyes and he's seen through film study how the route combinations go, and he makes picks like that.
That to me is what I loved about him at Colorado.
Yeah.
I was always like, damn, his instincts.
Like, if the ball's in the air, he's gonna get it.
He tackles awesome.
He does that.
He throws his body around like he's a much bigger human being than he is.
So yeah, let's start him, let's have the majority be there then, and let's grow him there.
And get him to a spot to where you start to finally go, "Hey, we got something here.
We got a player."
And then if you wanna start to infuse more offense on top of that from there, then you go from there.
So, I'm not shocked to see it, you know, s- sway to the defensive side of the ball, even though originally I really thought they drafted him to be more receiver than DB.
Me too.
Yeah.
I, this isn't gonna happen, but this is why my long thinking has been that he'd be great as a wide receiver that plays safetyBecause I, going back to what you said, I thought he was a good tackler.
I loved his range and instincts- Exactly right taking away the football.
Exactly right.
And I can't speak to this, I haven't done it, I think it's attainable to prepare to play safety and wide receiver rather than, we say it all the time, but go run around with Ja'Marr Chase this week, and then you need to get nine targets on offense.
That- I don't, I don't know if that's humanly possible.
It's, it's really hard.
Like, by genetics, it's science.
I, I would just tell you that Charles Woodson and Champ Bailey to me were more explosive, better athletes than Travis Hunter, and they couldn't even pull that off.
If you're really gonna play corner like a top-notch corner, right?
Like you, you said it, right?
You're on a island with Ja'Marr Chase, eight out of every 10 plays, something like that.
I mean, it's hard for me to think, "Oh yeah, you're gonna go over to the other side of the ball here in a few seconds and run four three once again."
So yeah, we'll see.
But this is, this is definitely something I think everybody's gonna watch.
When you make that type of move at the top of the draft, and then you see what the Browns got and some of the players they got, and they capitalized off of that, there's gonna be a spotlight on you.
And that's where I'm sure the Jaguars are feeling that pressure a little bit to, to make this work a little bit better than it did last year.
Back to Travis Hunter, you know, tweeting over the NFL Network report saying, "Now, who told you this?"
I don't know, I might have missed it while I was looking up the coverage.
Yeah.
But Tony Jefferson's reply- Right did you see this?
No, I don't know if I did.
Tony Jefferson said to Travis Hunter directly, they told him that, AKA Ian Rapoport, they just ain't told you yet, Rook.
Welcome to the league.
Exactly.
It's, that's how it goes.
It is.
Welcome to the politics of the NFL.
Exactly right.
Way to go.
And Tony's seen a lot- A lot in a long, successful career.
No doubt.
I, I love Tony Jefferson, the way he plays.
He'd be man crush kinda guy that I got.
You know, he just brings it.
And he knows the league, you're right about that.
Damn, he sat out the year and, and, you know, had to deal with league bullshit basically.
People thought he was done- Exactly and he's played almost four years since he's been done.
Came back and played well.
Yeah.
Right.
So on top of that And see, that's why I said what I said, right?
I think they, they were going, "No, no, no, we're moving to corner."
And they told a few people, and he found out.
And the first day he could go in the building, or maybe he went in the building that day and was like- You're right "What's going on?
I wanna play both sides."
And they've had to kind of readjust their approach to this off of that.
That would be my Spidey senses.
But like you, I don't know either.
I'm just kinda guessing and connecting dots there.
