• Travis Hunter performed better as a cornerback than a receiver as a rookie: Hunter played 323 offensive snaps in his rookie season, earning a 62.2 PFF offensive grade. On defense, he logged 162 snaps and posted a 73.2 PFF defensive grade.

• Hunter’s services are more needed in the Jaguars’ secondary: Jacksonville returns a deep receiver room, while the team faces multiple pending free agents at corner.

• 2026 NFL Draft season is here: Try the best-in-class PFF Mock Draft Simulator and learn about 2026’s top prospects while trading and drafting for your favorite NFL team.

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The Jaguars have made a clear call on Travis Hunter’s future. After missing much of his rookie season with a knee injury, Hunter will return as a full-time cornerback, according to NFL Network’s Cameron Wolfe, while remaining only a part-time contributor at wide receiver.

The data from Hunter’s shortened rookie season points Jacksonville strongly in the same direction. While he possesses rare physical gifts suitable for either side of the ball, Hunter’s profile always screamed cornerback first, with some unrefined upside as a wide receiver. 

We knew Hunter’s rookie year was going to be unusual. No player in recent memory has entered the league with genuine two-way expectations and been asked to execute both roles immediately. 

Jacksonville gave Hunter opportunities on both sides of the ball straight away, with some definite bias toward playing wide receiver, but the early results tilted towards a full-time position on defense. Hunter played 323 offensive snaps in his rookie season, earning a 62.2 PFF offensive grade. On defense, he logged 162 snaps and posted a 73.2 PFF defensive grade.

Granted, neither sample was massive — and Hunter’s NFL tape pales in comparison to his library of film at Colorado (both in quality and quantity) — but the difference between the two grades was consistent with what evaluators have always believed. Hunter looks more comfortable, more refined and more impactful when aligned at cornerback.

This was also the case during his final collegiate season at Colorado. En route to winning the Heisman Trophy, Hunter graded marginally better on defense (88.2) than offense (86.3). Again, the gap isn’t dramatic, but it reinforces the idea that Hunter’s highest-level play came on the defensive side, even while carrying one of the heaviest workloads the sport has ever seen. 

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Hunter undoubtedly has more opportunities to make spectacular plays when catching passes from Trevor Lawrence, but two drops in his first two career NFL games highlighted his offensive inconsistencies. Meanwhile, there are no such fears about concentration errors on defense. 

Dating back to November 2023, Hunter has allowed just one touchdown across his last 1,000 defensive snaps — a stretch which speaks to his ability to avoid the lapses in coverage that result in big receptions against young defensive backs all the time.

One of the more encouraging parts of Hunter’s rookie season was his ability to hold up against NFL-sized offensive players. Listed as long, lean and not physically imposing, there were questions about how Hunter would hold up as a tackler at the NFL level.

Those concerns are yet to materialize. Hunter registered 14 solo tackles before his season was cut short, whiffing on just one tackle in the process.

Jacksonville’s positional switch-up also makes sense from an in-game rhythm standpoint. Success at cornerback is built on constant engagement and comfortability. It’s much harder to rotate in and out on defense and maintain consistency, especially when tracking elite receivers in on-off sequences. 

Meanwhile, receivers rotate all the time offensively, depending on what the offense wants to call. It remains to be seen if Hunter will be employed offensively on a drive-by-drive basis or only in obvious passing situations. But, at least the Jaguars now have some leeway with how they deploy him. 

The challenge for Liam Coen now is not allowing Hunter to become an obvious tell for defenses that the Jaguars are planning to put the ball in the air. Hunter is not the world’s best run-blocker, but he offers more than enough desire to hold up in this facet and is by no means a liability for the Jaguars’ rushing attack. Even within his reduced offensive role, there will likely be packages where Hunter’s mere presence forces defensive adjustments given his propensity to make explosive plays.

The Jaguars also made this decision with the makeup of their overall roster in mind. If the organization believes Hunter will develop into a top-caliber player at one single position, cornerback represents a more pressing need as a rare Super Bowl window approaches in Jacksonville. 

The trade deadline acquisition of Jakobi Meyers proved fruitful, as he restored much of the form he had lost during his spell with the Las Vegas Raiders. The Jaguars also seem to have significant belief in 23-year-old Brian Thomas Jr., even though he was unable to build on his tremendous rookie season in Year 2.

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Sprinkle in the late-season emergence of Parker Washington, and this wide receiver room is suddenly quite crowded. Had Hunter remained a full-time offensive player, touches would have become harder to disperse evenly — especially in Coen’s offense, which was inside the top 10 in additional offensive lineman usage last season.

Jacksonville’s secondary is in much different shape. The Jaguars have unanswered questions at cornerback, where snap leaders Montaric Brown and Greg Newsome II are both at the end of their contracts and will require new deals over the coming weeks.

Newsome looked incredibly shaky in his first few games for the Jaguars after he was traded from the Browns — he posted a brutal 35.0 overall PFF grade in his first five games following the trade. But he steadied the ship down the stretch, closing out the season with a 64.5 PFF grade in his last six games and potentially doing enough to warrant a new contract.

Regardless of the status of Jacksonville’s unrestricted free agents, guaranteeing Hunter’s full-time availability at the corner position provides more flexibility for what the team wants to do this offseason as it looks to round out the pieces of a Super Bowl contender.  

Hunter will rejoin a defensive backfield that already features another versatile young piece in safety Antonio Johnson. Entering the final year of his rookie contract in 2026, Johnson is coming off a tremendous campaign that saw him finish as PFF’s highest-graded safety of the regular season with an 87.4 overall grade. This jump was especially striking given that Johnson graded 103rd out of 104 safeties one season earlier. If Johnson can carry his hot run of form into next season, a high-performing safety behind Hunter will help ease his transition into this permanent role.

The Jaguars now have their second overall pick on a clear developmental path. Cornerback is a position where constant reps matter more than any other. Full-time communication from training camp right through to the end of next season is crucial if Hunter wants to become the elite cornerback he once projected as.

I sincerely hope this adjustment doesn’t wind up closing the door on Hunter as an offensive contributor. His ball skills and competitive nature are up there with some of the best we’ve seen from a college prospect. Plus, he has proven to be a dangerous weapon in many situations, not just a three-snaps-per-game gadget player yielding little more than a first down here and there. 

As much as we don’t want to see that happen, the reality is that Hunter belongs on defense permanently. It’s what is best for his development, his long-term health and the current roster dilemma Jacksonville faces. 

We just watched the effect that elite young cornerbacks Devon Witherspoon and Christian Gonzalez had on leading their teams to Super Bowl appearances. Then, during the game itself, they were perhaps the two best players on the field. What’s to say Hunter can’t find himself in the exact same position in mid-February next year?