Are Pundits on the Jaguars Two-Way Plan Off Base?

There's plenty of excitement in Jacksonville these days about WR/DB Travis Hunter and the organization's plan to play him both on offense and defense possibly full time. While Head Coach Liam Coen's exact in-stadium plan for the divison of labor is not 100% clear, the Jaguars seem married to the concept.

Not everybody around the league, however, is absolutely convinced that the revolutionary rookie and the coaching staff can pull this off. On a recent installment of the Jacksonville Jaguars Insider Podcast, Jaguars on SI Beat Writer John Shipley talked about the naysayers, and whether or not he thought that they were on point.

"So, I listened to what Travis Kelce had to say about him. He believes that Hunter will be more or less targeted by teams, and he's not the first one to say that. I know a former Super Bowl Champ on the Pittsburgh Steelers [Willie Colon] said it as well, but he he's not the first person to say that teams are going to, you know, really put their onus on Travis Hunter, and that they are going to attempt to make his life tougher.

"It's not a surprise whatsoever. Because when you have a talent like him, and he is playing so many snaps, you know, everybody obviously has him when they write down their scouting reports for the week."

"So teams are going to be set out to be ultra physical with the Jaguars number two wide receiver? Maybe they will. I just think it's really an odd stance if they do, because the beauty of the Jaguar situation with Travis Hunter is that you have Brian Thomas. If teams want to devote their whole game plans and resources and really their psychology to stopping Travis Hunter or disrupting him or making him tired, that just opens things up for Brian Thomas. This isn't a situation where a team has just one guy you need to stop. [TE] Brenton Strange and [WR3] Dyami Brown who maybe aren't the focal point of the passing game, but [they] can help you, They can hurt you [opponents]."

"So I'm not sure what do teams really do to make a guy's life miserable at wide receiver. And then at cornerback, what are they going to do, run at him? Is their entire game plan going to be run at Travis Hunter? Because that feels like a pretty easily fixed issue. Okay, they're just going to run at Travis Hunter. You know where they're going. And Travis Hunter is, despite his probably smaller size, a very physical player, I'd say. So I just don't see how, other than maybe running, a lot of you know, crack tosses and running outside at him."

"I don't see how you make his life miserable. He's not playing offensive and defensive line, he's not playing linebacker, he's not playing quarterback and getting hit, etc. He's not playing running back and getting hit every time he touches the ball. He's playing wide receiver and cornerback. There's contact, there's physicality, but probably should be toned down a notch, in my opinion.'"

And then to me, the second part of that, where, again, he [Travis Kelce] says, 'dude, if he plays corner, they're just going to run deep balls at him all day. The wide receivers just take off on him all day just to try to get him tired. Why wouldn't you just attack him that way?' So if the Jaguars have a player who teams are purposely having their players run dummy routes, essentially clear out routes to make him tired, how is that a non-advantage for the Jaguars, they're devoting parts of their scheme and game plan just to make one player tired."

"But running deep routes at him just to tire him out? Wouldn't that mean, in a sense, that you're basically not targeting him. So you're targeting Tyson Campbell, you're targeting Jourdan Lewis. Okay, that it just to me, is such an odd stance, and I don't think teams will be that naive. They would literally be sacrificing the value of their offense just to hope they can make a player on the Jaguars roster tired". So to me, I guess even a player as great as Kelce and as distinguished and all the accolades he has, if that's the way he's viewing it, maybe teams do it the same way. And if they do, I think that's a win for the Jaguars."

It's unknown whether the plan will be as great as the Jaguars and their fans think it might be. However, the rationale on how to stop it by the ones who have expressed that it will fail miserably is preposterous. Liam Coen has designed a staff coordinated by OC Grant Udinski and DC Anthony Campanile to play chess while others think they are merely playing Chutes and Ladders. So tire out Travis Hunter, the big cats in the headsets will counter.

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