Deion Sanders still doesn’t have a clean read on how the Jaguars are handling Travis Hunter, and after two games, he sounds every bit as puzzled as he did in May.
Back then, Sanders said he was disappointed he hadn’t heard from Jacksonville about how to coach and use the cornerback/receiver. On his CBS Colorado show recently, he made it clear that the uncertainty hasn’t gone away.
“I don’t ask questions because I’m not there,” Sanders said recently on his CBS Colorado show. “I don’t know what transpires when we’re not looking.
I have no idea what’s going on. I know who he was and who he is right now.
I know what he’s capable of. I do know that.”
So far, the workload hasn’t matched the hype. In Week 1, Hunter played four offensive snaps and 29 on defense, finishing with one catch for eight yards. In Week 2, he got six snaps on offense and 37 on defense, and he wasn’t targeted at all in the Jaguars passing game.
That usage has naturally stirred questions, especially for a player drafted with the promise of becoming the first true full-time two-way player since Chuck Bednarik. Earlier this week, coach Liam Coen said the Jaguars will take a look at giving Hunter more reps this week on both sides of the ball.
Hunter, for his part, declined to get into the details when asked Friday whether he had spoken with coaches about the rotation at cornerback.
“I’m gonna leave that up to the coaches to answer,” Hunter said. “ That ain’t for me to answer.”
Before the regular season, Hunter also laid out his own view of what he can do, and why he believes both roles are still in reach. On The Pivot podcast, Ryan Clark told him he could be a Hall of Fame cornerback or a Pro Bowl-caliber receiver, while making the point that doing both is another matter.
Hunter’s answer was simple.
“Work ethic,” Hunter said. “We all get the same 24 hours.”
When Channing Crowder pushed back and said, “The numbers don’t work out,” Hunter didn’t blink.
“If I’m trying to be the best - how are you gonna be the best, if you ain’t trying to be the best? If you ain’t trying to compete and do the best to be the best?
So my main focus is be the best. So I’m gonna do everything I can do to be the best.
I don’t want to be the best at one position. There’s a lot of people that’s the best at one position.
Ain’t nobody yet been the best at both, full-time.”
Hunter has made it clear he wants both sides of the ball, and he hasn’t hidden his dislike for standing around. Asked what he prefers, he said he likes doing both and doesn’t want to be on the sideline.
“I like doing both,” Hunter said. “And I cannot sit on the sideline.
I don’t think nobody’s noticed that yet. I hate the sidelines.
I do not wanna sit there. I can’t sit there and just watch football.
I’ve got to be on the field.”
Clark noted that 52 other players do spend time on the sideline, and Hunter’s response was blunt.
“That’s their problem,” Hunter said.
He was smiling when he said it, but the larger point hasn’t changed: Hunter still wants to play full-time on both offense and defense. Right now, though, his snaps are so limited on each side that the total doesn’t even equal what he’d get if he were full-time at one position.
And that leaves the Jaguars in a strange place. They traded up from No. 5 to No. 2 to draft Hunter, saying they were getting two players in one. But with the workload the way it is, the idea of a true two-way player has run headlong into the reality that, as Crowder put it, the numbers don’t work out.
It also raises the obvious question: if Jacksonville wasn’t prepared to let Hunter do what he clearly wanted to do, why make that kind of move in the first place?
Everyone knew Hunter wanted to play both ways. The Jaguars’ decision to trade up signaled they were on board with that vision. Two games in, the usage tells a very different story.
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