When it comes to rookie contracts, there’s not much to negotiate. On one of the few negotiable items, Jaguars receiver/defensive back Travis Hunter did very well.
Adam Schefter of ESPN.com reports that Hunter will receive his full, slotted $30.57 million bonus up front. He’s the first non-quarterback not taken first overall to get the full signing bonus up front.
Often, teams stagger the payments. Sometimes, a portion of the money isn’t paid out for nearly a year. There’s real value in getting the cash right away. It can be put to work, earning interest while Hunter does nothing.
It’s the least the Jaguars could do for a player who relishes the opportunity to work overtime. His contract won’t pay him extra to play both ways; the total money is driven solely by the position in which he was drafted.
When it’s time for the Jaguars to pick up Hunter’s fifth-year option, it will be driven by the position at which he takes the most snaps. Ditto for the franchise tag.
Only in his second contract will Hunter have a chance to get paid for playing both positions. He won’t be eligible for that until after his third regular season ends.
That’s when it will get interesting. After the 2027 regular season. Hunter, if he’s playing both ways on a full-time basis, will have every right to be paid for both of his jobs.
The stakes will be high, for both sides. The Jaguars happily gave up their 2026 first-round pick and more to trade up three spots in the first round because they were getting two players in one — as their two-pronged social-media announcement of his signing confirms. At some point, they’ll need to depart from a Collective Bargaining Agreement that doesn’t contemplate paying extra money to a player who plays both ways.
UPDATE 8:05 p.m. ET: A league source takes issue with Schefter’s report that Hunter is the first non-quarterback not taken first overall to get his full signing bonus up front. Per the source, both Nick Bosa and Chase Young got their full signing bonuses up front. (Also, plenty of second- through seventh-round picks have gotten the full amount of their signing bonuses up front. The numbers, obviously, were much smaller.)
The Jaguars have taken care of an important piece of business on Sunday.
Jacksonville announced on Sunday that the club has signed No. 2 overall pick Travis Hunter to his four-year contract.
The Jags made the announcement in a cheeky way, sending separate posts for Hunter signing as a receiver and as a defensive back.
Via multiple reports, Hunter’s slotted contract is worth $46.6 million with a $30.6 million signing bonus.
The Jaguars will decide whether or not to exercise Hunter’s fifth-year option in the spring of 2028.
While Hunter is set to be a two-way player, the Jaguars have said that he’s starting out as a receiver while working in at defensive back.
Hunter and the rest of Jacksonville’s rookies are set to report for training camp on July 19.
If the Jaguars ask rookie Travis Hunter to play a whole game on offense and a whole game on defense, they think he can do it.
Jaguars General Manager James Gladstone told Andrew Siciliano on SiriusXM NFL Radio that Hunter’s physical makeup is such that he can handle everything thrown at him without wearing down over the course of four quarters.
“He does not tire,” Gladstone said. “He’s got a spark, he’s got the energy, the capacity from a physical standpoint to be able to be able to do it is certainly there.”
Gladstone wouldn’t commit to a certain number of offensive or defensive snaps per game that the Jaguars are expecting from Hunter but indicated that the Jaguars are confident that whatever number they ask of him, he’ll deliver.
“Certain game plans might dictate usage differently,” he said. “Putting a number on it at this stage is premature.”
So far Hunter has worked more on offense than on defense, but Gladstone said that’s more about the Jaguars thinking Hunter needed more time to learn his role in their offense than he’ll need to learn their defense. When the time comes, the Jaguars think he’ll be ready to play both ways — possibly seeing as much time on both sides of the ball as any player since Chuck Bednarik.
Seven weeks after the 2025 NFL draft began, most of the 257 draft picks have agreed to terms.
As of Wednesday, 217 of the selections had signed their four-year rookie deals. Of the 40 unsigned players, 30 were taken in round two.
The problem there comes from the fact that the first two players taken in the round receive fully-guaranteed contracts — an unprecedented development. It remains to be seen how deep into the round the full guarantees will go, which has kept any of the remaining second-rounders from signing.
In the top half of the first round, only Jaguars receiver/cornerback Travis Hunter is unsigned. The reasons for the situation aren’t known; Hunter’s contract value is based on his draft slot.
It doesn’t matter if he plays both offense and defense, in theory. In practice, Hunter could be trying to get extra pay for extra work. (As he should.)
In all, four first-round picks are unsigned and six fourth-rounders aren’t signed, in addition to the 30 second-round selections.
The Jaguars closed out this week’s minicamp by providing a glimpse of things to come in the future.
First-round pick Travis Hunter did not play offense and defense in the same practice at any point during the team’s organized team activities, but he switched from wide receiver to cornerback during Thursday’s final practice of Jacksonville’s offseason program.
After the session, head coach Liam Coen was asked at his press conference if that was a sign of things to come in training camp and beyond.
“Yeah, I think so,” Coen said. “That’s definitely what we have to build towards for training camp and then, obviously, in season. Knowing that, during practice he’s gonna have to do both. He wants to do it. It’s not as if it’s something where he can’t handle. He wants to go and do that more. He wants more and that’s a good thing. But, ultimately, we have to also protect him from himself at times as well and make sure we get out of this phase healthy. But that is absolutely the plan moving forward.”
It remains to be seen how much Hunter is going to be used on both sides of the ball in his rookie season and there will be no shortage of people watching to see how that plays out.
Earlier this week, Jaguars head coach Liam Coen told reporters that Trevor Lawrence was wearing a compression sleeve on his throwing arm due to “general soreness.”
Lawrence himself explained on Thursday that he isn’t wearing the sleeve for any significant concern about his right arm.
“You’ve got to think about, I hadn’t thrown, before OTAs, since December,” Lawrence said in his press conference. “So, it was about four months of not throwing. And that’s like, I’ve never — I couldn’t tell you the last time I didn’t throw for four months. I guess four years ago when I got surgery.
“I started throwing a couple of weeks before we started the offseason program. But then we jumped into practice and heavy volume. And I think just over time, I mean, obviously you’ve got to adjust and get in shape for that. So just a little bit of soreness. The compression helps just relieve some of that. But that’s all it is, so nothing I’m concerned about.”
Lawrence, 25, had his 2024 season end prematurely due to a left shoulder injury. In 10 starts last year, he completed 61 percent of his passes for 2,045 yards with 11 touchdowns and seven interceptions.
The Packers have wide receiver Bo Melton taking snaps at cornerback, but Melton makes it clear he is not switching to defense. He instead will try to play both positions.
“It’s just something that came up,” Melton said Wednesday, via Matt Schneidman of TheAthletic.com. “I want to give it a shot. I’m still a wide receiver, so I’m not really transitioning to no cornerback, but if it works, it works.”
The Packers are deep at wide receiver after using a first-round pick on Matthew Golden and a third-rounder on Savion Williams. They cut cornerback Jaire Alexander this week, leaving them thin behind Keisean Nixon, Nate Hobbs and Carrington Valentine.
Melton played cornerback in high school and sparingly at the start of his college career at Rutgers. He plays a similar position to corner on the punt return unit, so he has experience tackling in the open field.
Melton’s time on the other side of the line confused both Packers quarterback Jordan Love and Melton’s brother, Max, a cornerback with the Cardinals.
Max saw the news on social media and called Bo, asking, “What the hell are you doing?”
The experiment might or might not work, but Melton is willing to try.
“There are very few guys who have done it in our league,” General Manager Brian Gutekunst said. “There have been a few and when a guy’s able to do that, it certainly helps your football team. Bo is everything we want in a football player out there as far as his ability as a receiver, certainly on [special] teams. If he’s able to add to his arsenal, that makes him really, really valuable to us.”
Melton, though, makes it clear he’s no Travis Hunter, the No. 2 overall pick who will play both sides of the ball with the Jaguars as he did at Colorado.
“Travis is a different athlete, as everybody knows,” Melton said. “He’s a Heisman Trophy winner, won a lot of awards. I’m not going to compare myself to somebody that’s done that, but what I will say is I like to run for days.”
The Jaguars had a scare during Wednesday’s minicamp practice, but one of the club’s most important offensive players avoided significant injury.
Via multiple reporters on the scene, receiver Brian Thomas Jr. took a hard fall during team drills after a collision with Tyson Campbell and appeared to have hurt his shoulder. Though he went off the field with trainers and went inside the team facility, he was back on the field with his helmet later in the session — though he did not go back in.
Head coach Liam Coen told reporters after practice that Thomas is OK.
“He’s fine. He absolutely could’ve gone back and played — just bruised it a little bit,” Coen said in his press conference. “Said he had great range of motion, strength. He’s all good. No issues, just precautionary.
“[I]f he didn’t come back out, he’d be really hurt,” Coen added. “He was completely cleared to play.”
That’s good news, as Thomas is set to be a key cog for Jacksonville’s offense in 2025. He caught 87 passes for 1,282 yards with 10 touchdowns as a rookie last year.
Jaguars head coach Liam Coen downplayed any reason for concern about quarterback Trevor Lawrence wearing a sleeve on his right arm during Tuesday’s practice at the team’s minicamp.
Lawrence went through the entire practice and was throwing the ball during the session, but Coen was asked about the sleeve during his post-practice press conference.
“He just had a little bit of general soreness,” Coen said. “We threw a lot of balls last week. He feels good. He said it wasn’t really an issue. It was more when you just have something to keep it warm helps any kind of thrower. I think it was more just maintenance than anything that was really bothering him.”
Lawrence’s 2024 season ended because of left shoulder surgery, but it doesn’t appear that the current issue with his throwing arm is a risk to put him back on the sideline.
One player winning both the NFL’s offensive and defensive rookie of the year awards, would have seemed unthinkable until Travis Hunter came along. But heading into the 2025 season, Hunter has a real chance at both.
Hunter, the Jaguars’ wide receiver/cornerback, currently has the third-shortest odds to win offensive rookie of the year, and he also has the third-shortest odds to win defensive rookie of the year.
In the offensive category, Hunter’s odds are at +900 at FanDuel. Only Raiders running back Ashton Jeanty at +250 and Titans quarterback Cam Ward at +320 are viewed as more likely than Hunter to win the award.
In the defensive category, Hunters odds are at +1000. Only Giants edge rusher Abdul Carter at +250 and Falcons linebacker Jalon Walker at +700 are viewed as more likely to get it. San Francisco defensive end Mykel Williams is tied with Hunter at +1000.
Hunter winning both awards in the same year is an extreme long shot, but that he’s even in the conversation is an impressive sign of his skill set. In addition to winning the Heisman Trophy last year at Colorado, Hunter won both the Chuck Bednarik Award as the best defensive player and the Fred Biletnikoff Award as the best wide receiver. He might add another trophy to his mantel this season. Maybe even more than one.
