Would Hunter still worth a Top 3 pick if he only played one position?
The 2025 NFL Draft is almost here and this year’s draft is going to be hugely consequential for the New York Giants. I don’t think it’s hyperbole to say that it could determine the course of the franchise for the next five years. This is also an incredibly unusual draft with intrigue at almost every level and at every position.
The BBV mailbag is already stuffed with questions and we are been picking a few out to answer along the way.
Ed’s asked me to take on today’s question, which is regarding Colorado’s Travis Hunter.
Cristos Votsis writes:
There is a huge amount of hype around Travis Hunter as he is able to play 2 way at a high level.
The reality of the NFL is players can’t play 100+ snaps a game week in week out. He will likely play one side of the football full time and sprinkle snaps at the other. Obviously this is advantageous but how good is he, or can he be, as a WR or CB?
How does he compare as a WR only to the rest of this draft and other recent hits such as Nabers? How does he compare as a CB only to the draft and previous picks as as Sauce [Gardner], [Derek] Stingley etc.?
In position isolation do you think he is worthy of no 3 before the 2 way advantage kicks in?
First off, thanks for writing in, Cristos!
I definitely agree that Hunter won’t be playing every snap — or even most snaps — on both sides of the ball in every game.
I think people get infatuated with the idea of Hunter, and might be overlooking the reality a bit. Between practice time and managing fatigue and injury risk, he’ll have to “Major” in one side of the ball and “Minor” in the other at the NFL level.
So, should that be receiver, or corner? And how does he compare to those positions in this and recent drafts?
Let’s get into it.
Wide receiver
We’ll start on the offensive side of the ball because that’s a little more straight forward with this class.
I do believe Hunter would be the best pure receiver in this year’s class, though he doesn’t quite run away with it. Purely as wide receivers, Tetairoa McMillan, Matthew Golden, and Luther Burden III aren’t far behind.
Hunter has fantastic quickness, agility, and burst, as well as great ball skills. That should let him contribute immediately on that side of the ball and be a real headache for anyone covering him. That said, he also has a narrow frame and isn’t a particularly physical receiver, so he could struggle if bigger corners get a good jam on him.
McMillan has Hunter far outclassed in terms of size, and could be a Drake London or Tee Higgins type receiver. Golden is a better route runner and is also much faster in the open field — think Sterling Shepard with a “fast forward” button. Burden, meanwhile, is like Victor Cruz in terms physicality and how he turns into a running back as soon as he gets the ball in his hands.
Hunter, meanwhile, would compare to DeVonta Smith among recent draftees. It isn’t a perfect comparison as Hunter is certainly bigger than Smith (185 pounds to 170), but Smith was a better technician coming out. That’s to be expected given that Hunter has to split his practice between receiver and corner, but I do think that gap could be closed if Hunter concentrates on offense in the NFL.
Defense
The defensive side of the ball is a bit trickier.
The quick and dirty is that Hunter is the top cornerback in the draft as well, but it could be much closer.
Overall, it’s complicated by the fact that three the of the top prospects — Will Johnson, Benjamin Morrison, and Shavon Revel — all missed significant chunks of the season and Draft Process to injury. It’s possible that with a full year of work and tape, any or all of them could have eclipsed Hunter or at least formed a pack around him.
And that’s in addition to players like Jahdae Barron and Maxwell Hairston. They have pretty different skill sets from Hunter but could carry similar grades as Hunter on the defensive side for some teams.
As for previous draftees… That’s definitely tricky as there aren’t many who directly compare with Hunter’s traits.
I mentioned that Matthew Golden is much faster than Hunter, and frankly, I have some concerns regarding his long speed. He’s agile and explosively quick, which gives him a great closing burst and he can stay with most receivers through their routes. However, I noticed a few times on tape — at WR and CB — that Hunter can struggle to keep up if a receiver gets a step on him, and he doesn’t really run away from DBs on the offensive side of the ball.
Between that and his narrow frame, I don’t think he compares to Sauce Gardner or Stingley among recent draftees. In fact, there have been few corners drafted highly who are “DNA” matches with Hunter.
My initial thought was actually Paulson Adebo as a wide receiver turnedcornerback who thrives on quickness and ball skills in zone coverage. However Adebo is about 15 pounds heavier and it just didn’t quite “feel right”.
Instead I landed on a much older name: Asante Samuel.
Samuel is almost the same size as Hunter at 6-foot, 185 pounds, and had a very similar game to what I think Hunter will need to play at the NFL level. He’ll likely have to be a zone corner, trading on his instincts, understanding of offensive concepts, his incredible burst, and ball skills.
That might not be the recipe for a “shutdown” corner in the NFL, but it could be a game-changing one.
Tying it all together
So, do I think that Travis Hunter is “worthy” of a Top 3 pick as a pure wide receiver or a pure cornerback?
Honestly, probably not.
I like him at roughly the 10th overall spot where DeVonta Smith was drafted in 2020. However, I would take Sauce, Stingley, or Nabers over him at their respective positions so Top 5 is too rich at either position.
I do think he is a better cornerback than wide receiver at this point in his development. That said, I also think his ceiling is a bit higher at receiver due to his athletic profile.
And therein lies the rub with Hunter and the “2-way advantage” as Cristos put it. You aren’t getting a cornerback or a wide receiver, but rather a “player-and-a-half”. What pushes Hunter into the Top 3 is that he can be a full-time player at the position of greater need, and a contributor on the other side of the ball.
