The entire offseason, the noise coming out of Jacksonville had Travis Hunter playing mainly on defense. Liam Coen has maintained that Hunter will see opportunities on both sides of the ball, but the inside reports have completely disagreed.
In the latest report validating Hunter as a full-time cornerback, ON SI’s Albert Breer highlighted what the Jaguars really feel about their two-way star.
Breer wrote that the Jaguars “believe he can become a shutdown corner.”
The whole two-way experiment was a nice training camp talking point, but Breer’s notes make it clear: the Jaguars aren’t playing around anymore.
Hunter isn’t just dipping his toes into the secondary. He’s anchoring it—and how they handle that decision will make or break Liam Coen’s season 2.
ESPN’s Bill Barnwell explains, “What happens in 2026 might play a huge role in determining how often we see the 2025 second overall pick mix things up at wide receiver. The Jaguars didn’t seem to have a consistent plan for Hunter on defense last year.”
Travis Hunter at Cornerback Makes Most Sense
The Jaguars receiving corps is their strongest room. Between Brian Thomas Jr., Parker Washington, and veteran safety blanket Jakobi Meyers, Liam Coen has a functional, established pecking order to work with.
Forcing a part-time offensive role for Travis Hunter on top of that would just create an unnecessary numbers game. Given how the roster shakes out on the perimeter, Jacksonville practically boxed themselves into this decision.
While they have veteran bodies like Jourdan Lewis and regular rotation pieces like Christian Braswell and Jarrian Jones, they don’t have the luxury of proven depth pieces outside corners waiting in the wings.
If Hunter isn’t locked into that full-time cornerback role, the drop-off in cover talent on the outside gets steep very quickly, making a full-time defensive assignment the cleaner path for everyone involved.
That’s also a massive reason why Coen, despite hyping up the two-way vision all offseason long, has kept him practicing exclusively at cornerback, as reported by John Shipley.
They simply couldn’t afford to treat his cornerback snaps as a part-time hobby when the depth behind him is that light.
Travis Hunter Jags’ X-Factor
How Hunter turns out at cornerback is the primary talking point with less than a week to go for the Jaguars’ season opener vs. the Browns.
Last season, Hunter’s development was largely kept under wraps because of his LCL tear, which is a major reason why scaling back the chaotic two-way workload to focus primarily on one side of the ball makes sense.
ESPN’s Ben Solak noted that the two-way star flashed more promise as a defensive back than a wide receiver last season, naming him Jacksonville’s ultimate X-factor as he steps into a full-time CB1 role.
“I’m going to call Hunter an X factor until I feel confident in what he is — and isn’t — capable of,” Solak wrote. “I’m not close yet on either side of the ball. I thought Hunter was a better defensive back than wide receiver coming out of Colorado, but Hunter had only 154 snaps on defense before an injury to the LCL in his right knee last season — not nearly enough to evaluate him.”
If he manages to stay healthy this season, the Jaguars—and the rest of the league—will finally get the tape needed to see what he’s truly made of on the outside.
Jaguars Insider Drops Key Travis Hunter Announcement Before Week 1 vs. Browns