So far throughout the Jacksonville Jaguars' various camps, rookie two-way star Travis Hunter has been splitting up his time practicing on offense and defense. He had yet to practice on both sides of the ball in one day until Thursday's minicamp.
Jaguars coach Liam Coen told reporters after Thursday's practice that it's likely Hunter continues to play both sides each day of training camp when that starts up next month. This will allow Hunter to gear up to play both sides of the ball during the season.
“That’s definitely what we have to build towards for training camp and then, obviously, in season," Coen said. "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.”
Like Coen said, this shouldn't be too much of a change for Hunter, as he played receiver and cornerback during his college years at Colorado.
The Heisman Trophy winner playing both sides in the NFL, though, is somewhat a foreign concept for many NFL fans. With Hunter officially becoming a two-way star in the NFL, he'll be the first one in the modern era. The last two-way player in the league was Chuck Bednarik, who played in the NFL from 1949-62. You can read a whole history here about the stars who played the full "60 minutes" of the game by competing on both offense and defense.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Travis Hunter Completes Impressive Career First at Jaguars Practice.
