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.
