Through two games, Jaguars No. 2 overall pick Travis Hunter has played 61 percent of the team’s offensive snaps and 37 percent of defensive snaps.
With coaching a two-way player still a unique challenge, Jags head coach Liam Coen told reporters in his Wednesday press conference that he thinks the team has found a sweet spot in how to split Hunter’s practice time.
“You look at, I think we were very intentional last week, specifically about some of the volume and mileage that we were looking at deploying, and it showed up on Sunday,” Coen said. “There’s definitely things to clean up about that in terms of detailing the preparation and making sure that all the formations, all the alarms [are known], but we can help them too and maybe simplify some of that stuff as well for him.
“But very happy with where things were last week in terms of our organization with him, his preparation, and we kind of continue to do that this week as we continue to just evaluate how many snaps and what it’s going look like each week.”
Coen noted that Hunter is pretty much splitting his time 50-50 between offense and defense during the practice week. But Hunter is also putting in plenty of extra work on his own.
“So, he does have to do, I don’t want to call it double time, but it is in a lot of ways, a little bit of double time,” Coen said. “So, I thought he had a really intentional week last week. The way that he prepared, the way that he practiced was exactly what we’re hunting up, so was definitely pleased and hopefully it continues to carry over.”
It’s only been two weeks, but at this point, Coen isn’t concerned about Hunter’s workload.
“I mean, I think, if anything, we probably have a little bit more encouragement and excitement about where things went this last week in terms of being able to handle that workload,” Coen said. “We’ve got to manage it, though, like it’s something we are constantly evaluating.
“So, is it a concern? No, it’s just something that we definitely need to make sure we’re constantly evaluating and being able to tweak if necessary.”
Hunter has caught nine passes for 55 yards and recorded three total tackles with one pas defensed so far as a rookie.
The Jaguars released safety Darnell Savage on Tuesday and they filled their open roster spot with another safety on Wednesday.
The team announced that they have signed Kahlef Hailassie off of the Vikings’ practice squad. Hailassie signed with the Vikings this offseason and returned to their practice squad after the cut to 53 players.
Hailassie spent the last two seasons with the Browns and appeared in 10 games. He made one start and was credited with eight tackles.
Andrew Wingard and Eric Murray are the starting safeties in Jacksonville. Antonio Johnson and sixth-round pick Rayuan Lane round out the safety group for the Jags.
The Jaguars want wide receiver/cornerback Travis Hunter to be the NFL’s only true two-way player in decades, but through two games he’s not a full-time player on either offense or defense.
Hunter has played 61 percent of the Jaguars’ offensive snaps and 37 percent of the Jaguars’ defensive snaps in the first two weeks of the season. That’s highly unusual; only four NFL players have played on both sides of the ball this season and the other three (Philadelphia’s Cooper DeJean, Cleveland’s Adin Huntington and Pittsburgh’s Jalen Ramsey) are almost exclusively defensive players who have played less than 5 percent of offensive snaps.
But contrary to suggestions that the Jaguars would give Hunter a bigger workload than he could physically handle, Hunter actually isn’t playing an extraordinary number of snaps. Hunter has played a total of 133 snaps this season. More than 100 NFL players, including nine on the Jaguars, have played more total snaps than that. It’s just that those other players are playing only on one side of the ball, and sometimes some special teams.
So far, Hunter hasn’t had a huge impact. He’s caught nine passes, but only totaled 55 receiving yards, and only one of his nine catches got the Jaguars a first down. On defense he has no interceptions, one pass defensed and three combined tackles.
Hunter is doing something unique by getting significant snaps on both sides of the ball, but through two weeks he’s not a major impact player.
The Jaguars are moving on without veteran safety Darnell Savage.
They announced Savage’s release on Tuesday afternoon. There was no corresponding addition to the roster.
Savage appeared in the team’s first two games and made one tackle on 48 defensive snaps. He had 51 tackles and an interception in 13 starts for the team last season.
Savage was a 2019 Packers first-round pick and he spent the first five years of his career in Green Bay.
Eric Murray and Andrew Wingard are the top two safeties for the Jaguars. Antonio Johnson and sixth-round pick Rayuan Lane are also on the team’s 53-man roster.
The 0-2 Texans are set to get some help at the wide receiver spot.
Head coach DeMeco Ryans said at a Monday press conference that the team expects to have Christian Kirk and Braxton Berrios back for their Week 3 game against the Jaguars. Both players missed the first two games of the season with hamstring injuries.
The Texans have scored the fewest points in the league through the first two weeks of the season, so anything that has the potential to change that will be a welcome addition to the offense.
Kirk could be of particular help on third downs. The Texans have converted four of their 18 chances so far this season and that will have to improve for the team to start posting wins.
