Travis Hunter Is Going to Play Both Sides Again: Bold Bet or Mistake by the Jaguars?
The Jacksonville Jaguars have made up their mind. Travis Hunter is going to play both sides of the ball again in 2026. General manager James Gladstone confirmed it. Head coach Liam Coen confirmed it. The plan that the rest of the football world thought might quietly disappear after his rookie year is back on, with even more snaps coming on defense this time.
This is either going to be the boldest personnel decision of the year or the most stubborn one. There is not really a middle outcome.
Hunter’s rookie season was a small sample size and ended early because of a knee injury. He played 489 total snaps. Two-thirds of them were on offense as a receiver. He posted 28 catches for 298 yards and a touchdown. On defense in seven games, he had 15 tackles and three pass breakups. Decent production for a rookie playing two positions, but nothing that screamed superstar quite yet.
The injury concern is the elephant in the room. Hunter went down last year because his body could not hold up to the workload. Asking him to play 80-plus snaps a game across both offense and defense at the NFL level is unprecedented for a reason. Bodies break down. Players cannot sustain that kind of pounding over a 17-game season.
The Jaguars are betting that Hunter is the exception. They drafted him with a top pick. They paid up to make the trade work. They have his rookie contract leverage for the next four years. There is no incentive for them to scale back his role. They need him to be everything they hoped he would be when they made the move.
From a pure football standpoint, the offensive side is where Hunter has the most upside. He can run any route in the tree, has elite speed, and is the rare receiver who can also create plays after the catch. Trevor Lawrence needs weapons, and Hunter is one of the best young receivers in the league when he is on the field.
The defensive side is more complicated. The Jaguars are saying Hunter will see an uptick in cornerback usage in 2026. That is great in theory. In practice, you are asking a player to study two playbooks, attend two sets of position meetings, and learn the chemistry with two completely different units. The mental load alone is brutal.
Liam Coen is in his second year as the Jaguars head coach. He has full buy-in from the front office to build the offense around Hunter. The defense is being run by a different coordinator who has to work around Hunter’s offensive snap count when scheming his usage. This is a coordination nightmare in slow motion, and the Jaguars are pretending it is not.
NFL analysts are split on the approach. Some are convinced Hunter will be a breakout star with the increased defensive usage. Others believe the team should commit fully to one side, ideally cornerback, to maximize his All-Pro potential at a premium position. Both arguments have merit. The Jaguars are betting on a third path that no team has ever successfully executed.
The bigger question is whether Hunter can actually stay healthy with this workload. The history of two-way players in modern football is short for a reason. Players who try to do both wear down faster, miss more games, and never quite hit their ceiling at either position. Hunter is talented enough to potentially be the exception, but the injury history is not encouraging.
The Jaguars are all-in on the experiment. They have to be. Walking back the two-way plan would be admitting they made a mistake at the most critical decision point of their offseason. So they are doubling down. We will find out in September whether the bet pays off, and Jacksonville is betting its entire 2026 season on the answer.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
