He's Travis Hunter, the defensive back. He's also Travis Hunter, the wide receiver. But in the NFL, it all depends.
Colorado defensive back Travis Hunter speaks during a press conference at the NFL scouting combine in Indianapolis on Thursday. Credit: AP/Michael Conroy
INDIANAPOLIS
There’s been an intriguing thought question rattling around the NFL Combine this week as the league’s coaches, scouts and decision-makers descend on the same six square blocks of Indiana. It goes something like this:
If the best receiver in this draft class lined up against the best cornerback in the draft, who would win?
There usually is a way of facilitating a practical answer to that question, either on the field or through the series of exercises and measurements the prospects go through. What makes it a unique discussion this year, on a meditative par with other unanswerables like the sound of one hand clapping or a tree falling in the forest, is that in this case, they’re both the same guy.
Travis Hunter, the Heisman Trophy winner from Colorado, is looking to become the first full-time two-way player in pro football since Chuck Bednarik retired in 1962. For a league that uses this time of year to sort its incoming talent into neat boxes that stack tidily within their systems, his presence is dizzying, terrifying and titillating.
“I’m just different,” Hunter said on Thursday during his media availability at the event.
That’s for certain.
“Travis Hunter is like someone went to the Philadelphia Eagles and took Devonta Smith and Darius Slay and spun them around in a circle and they came out as the same human being,” NFL Network draft analyst Daniel Jeremiah said. “He is unique.”
As such, NFL teams need to have a unique plan in place if they do select him.
Hunter is listed as a defensive back for the purposes of this week, and many teams see that as his primary position. The Giants, who have the third pick in the draft and could have him fall to them depending on how the next two months shake out, are leaning that way . . . but there are some in the building who would prefer to look at him as a receiver first.
He instantly would become the Giants’ best cornerback and alleviate the pressures on former first-round pick Deonte Banks, who has yet to show he is up for the job as a No. 1 guy.
Jeremiah said he has a “fantasyland” scenario for the Giants.
“I’m sitting here thinking, man, you talk about turning around some excitement here in that market, and you trot out there Week 1 and you have Matthew Stafford throwing the ball to Malik Nabers and looking at Travis Hunter on the opposite side of the ball,” he said. “And who knows what else they can do with the money they have in free agency?”
That certainly would break the malaise the franchise has found itself in recently. Throw in a few gadgety offensive reps and those planes circling MetLife Stadium might be grounded for a while.
Other teams, though, would rather focus Hunter on offense. Most figure that they’ll be able to sprinkle him in sparingly on whatever side of the ball he isn’t based.
But Hunter? He’s listening to all of these plans the old thinkers have for him during the interviews and meetings this week and smiling. He wants to do both and knows he can do both . . . if they allow him to.
“I would hope for them to let me go out there at the other position, but that’s up to them, not me,” he said. “I want to play 100%, but it’s up to the organization.”
The toll that would place on his body is unimaginable. It takes NFL players several days to a week to recover physically from their games after playing 50 to 70 snaps on one side of the ball. Playing 100 to 140 snaps could erode Hunter before he reaches his full potential in the league.
Hunter said his personalized conditioning and treatment plans allow him to maintain his body without worrying about “load management.” While there are technological and kinesiological advances he takes advantage of, from massages to cryogenics, the key to his regimen, he said, is simply “waking up and walking around.”
It’s hard to imagine a team investing a high draft pick in him, not to mention the millions of dollars in salary, and then allowing him to set his own training plan.
There are some limits to what he’s willing to do, of course. One of the first questions asked of him on Thursday was about his skills as a kickoff or punt returner on special teams.
“I don’t know about returning,” he said. “I already got two jobs on my hands.”
That was his best line. Hunter was coy about which teams he has met with, answering each of those queries with a simple “Next question.” Most of his other answers were just as brief. When you are studying and preparing to play two positions in the NFL, you need efficiency in your life, and his verbal interactions certainly fell in line with that.
Eventually, of course, the question on the minds of every evaluator at the Combine made its way to the young man around whom it revolves.
In a matchup of Travis Hunter versus Travis Hunter, who would win?
Hunter, undoubtedly having heard this one before, didn’t miss a beat.
“Travis Hunter,” he said quickly.
And, we should add, the team that drafts him . . . provided it can figure out what to do with him.
Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.
