Travis

Hunter

Hunter’s highlight of the day came on defense when he made a diving interception in the first quarter. He played sparingly on offense once again. Hunter is a starting corner who sees a few snaps on offense every week. He is not on the fantasy radar for his Week 11 game against the Giants.

Hunter did add a 5-yard “rush” on what sure looked like a pass attempt from Trevor Lawrence, but that’s neither here nor there. What is here is a rather predictable letdown after Hunter went into the Jaguars’ Week 7 bye with a pop-up effort in London. Although it was good to see Hunter contribute at all on offense, his role is too limited in an attack with too many mouths to feed to treat him as even a boom/bust WR4. That includes for Thursday’s short-week date with a Ravens team now missing starting quarterback Lamar Jackson.

In London, where Travis Hunter’s best games live, Hunter both caught a touchdown and picked off C.J. Stroud (his first of the season), becoming the first player to do both in the same game since Brian Dawkins in 2002. Hunter did all this on just nine offensive snaps. The skill is there to do this on offense, but the Jaguars have really been defense-first with his snaps this year. Depending on the post-bye buzz, Hunter could be a reasonable pick-up in fantasy leagues ahead of Week 8’s games.

Coen talked about getting Hunter involved more on both sides of the ball, so it’s unclear how much of an uptick in offensive snaps we can expect in Week 3. Hunter has a 58 percent snap share on defense and a pitiful nine percent snap share on offense through two games. Even if he isn’t likely to hit the fantasy radar anytime soon, it would be shocking for the No. 2 overall pick to play this infrequently every week.

Hunter saw just four offensive snaps to 39 defensive snaps against the Browns. With a good wide receiver room, Hunter was not playing offense as much and his utilization overlapped with Jakobi Meyers. It’s unlikely the 23-year-old achieves much fantasy relevancy without an injury to Meyers moving forward.

Shipley leaves the light on for offensive contributions, entertaining the idea that Hunter can chip in “a few hundred yards and a few touchdowns” this season as well. That said, the early indications for Hunter’s FLEX viability in managed leagues are pretty bleak. Stash him if you wish, but understand that starting him in Week 1 against the Browns could result in zero points.

Shipley estimates that Hunter has logged fewer than 10 reps at wide receiver in team drills during that span. Shipley said, “it seems like” the Jaguars are treating Hunter like their CB1. He also still thinks “there will be games where he logs 50 percent of the offensive snaps,” though. The biggest takeaway is that Hunter has an extremely wide range of potential outcomes, and he cannot be counted on to be FLEX-viable at this time.

To be clear, Thomas is the starting X-receiver and Hunter is rotating in behind him. Hunter has also been taking more defensive snaps lately, so if he is going to maintain an offensive role, a simplified downfield role makes sense. Regarding Thomas, DiRocco adds that he “was arguably the best player on the field” during organized team activities, has had a “great” training camp and is “showing some of the toughness and ball security that seemed to be missing last season.” With all of that in mind, losing snaps in three-wide receiver sets is a bit surprising. Thomas is extremely talented, but obvious questions remain as to his usage in the upcoming season. A boom-bust WR3 season could be on the way.

It was suggested by Sports Illustrated’s John Shipley that the Jaguars could be “tipping their hand” here, as he writes “it is clear the Jaguars believe they need to devote more practice time with Hunter before Week 1 at cornerback, which could be the biggest signal yet that the majority of his snaps against the Cleveland Browns on Sept. 13 will be at cornerback.” Hunter will likely still be involved in the offense — he has worked with the offense every day before this — but it is notable that there was a shift here. Hunter will likely be just a dart throw WR5/WR6 in most standard leagues this year.

That would mean Thomas is set to play on the outside at the line of scrimmage. Parker Washington will presumably play in the slot with Jakobi Meyers and Travis Hunter fighting for flanker duties. As Wolfe notes, Liam Coen learned last year that going over the middle of the field and taking hits isn’t BTJ’s thing. Instead, he will likely be tasked with winning deep and beating man coverage. Wolfe noted Liam Coen’s roots in the Rams’ offense and compared BTJ’s role to that of Brandin Cooks and Sammy Watkins when they played in LA. Cooks topped 1,200 receiving yards in his first season with the Rams but fell below 600 in his second and final season with the team. Watkins, meanwhile, played just one season in LA and was also held under 600 yards. All signs point to Washington being the team’s No. 1 receiver this year.