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Michael DiRocco
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Travis Hunter‘s first look on protection for the Jacksonville Jaguars will come subsequent week.
Coach Liam Coen stated the two-way standout has been studying the offensive and defensive playbooks, however they opted to have him simply catch passes through the Jaguars’ two-day rookie camp that concluded Saturday. As an alternative, the crew will get him some defensive reps for the primary time over the past week of Section II of the offseason conditioning program.
“We simply type of ended up making a call that from yesterday to as we speak, we wished to have the ability to clear up among the issues that we could have been capable of miss yesterday [and] get further reps on the offensive aspect of the ball and subsequent week he’ll begin to roll on protection,” Coen stated after the roughly 90-minute exercise.
The Jaguars’ plan for Hunter — who performed receiver and cornerback in school at Jackson State and Colorado — was to start out out on offense as a result of that is a extra complicated system to study after which have him get time on protection as he turned extra snug. However Hunter already has began going via the defensive playbook.
“You’ve got simply received to get used to it,” Hunter stated. “It simply has a variety of several types of calls, however apart from that, the protection is fairly simple. You’ve got simply received to get used to the offense.
“Simply longer calls and ideas are completely different [on offense than defense].”
Coen stated Hunter already has discovered among the coverages regardless of not having spent as a lot time within the defensive playbook because the offensive one.
“He is been capable of dive in and study a few of our three-deep coverages, what can we name our three-deep coverages on the skin, if he must be manned up on the bottom of a three-by-one, he is aware of all of these calls already,” Coen stated. “So, on the finish of the day, it’ll be about, on the defensive aspect of the ball, communication. The approach and fundamentals, we’ll proceed to harp on, but it surely’s actually about being on the identical web page as the remainder of the blokes on the again finish from a communication standpoint and the remainder will type of maintain itself.
“… He is clearly having to study each side of the ball. He is a football-smart man. The sport is sensible to him. And so now it is nearly placing in that point, that further time that he’ll must do with a purpose to achieve success.”
The reigning Heisman Trophy winner performed 1,481 snaps and had 1,258 yards and 15 TDs receiving to associate with 4 interceptions on protection final season at Colorado. He averaged 113.9 snaps per sport.
The Jaguars traded with the Cleveland Browns to maneuver up three spots to No. 2 to draft Hunter.