2024 Sleepers
September 3, 2024
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With the NFL Draft hurdling toward us at an alarming rate, I think it is high time we have a talk about one of the most polarizing players in recent draft memory, Travis Hunter. And I say polarizing not so much in regard to his likability, I think he is almost universally well-received, but polarizing in the sense of the debate that rages on in many a group chat, and that is “will he play WR or CB at the NFL level… and will he succeed?”.
For starters, we have Travis telling us he fully intends to play both positions in the NFL, regardless of where he is drafted. To take that one step further, he declared for the combine as a defensive back, and won’t participate in any receiver drills. In fairness, he’s not doing any defensive back specific drills either, and is instead focusing his time on interviewing with teams. So while there seems to be something here, it’s again a whole bunch of fuss without much substance.
So that leaves me to draw my own conclusion, a scary reality for TSF fans and listeners, as they’ve seen me make my way through numerous articles laden with personal agendas and riddled with biases. But this time, I will attempt something never done before by new-age media… give you a fair and balanced assessment of what I think Travis Hunter will do/should do at the NFL level, and I will attempt to do so without any bias.
A hefty undertaking, no doubt.
I think the best way to approach this is from a couple different perspectives that I’m sure Hunter and his camp are also carefully monitoring and evaluating. A financial perspective, an on field performance perspective, and a legacy perspective. Let’s start with the financial aspect.
We’re told all the time that the NFL is a business. And players need to view it this way as much as the teams do, looking out for the generational wealth they can offer to their friends and families just by signing that one big contract. We’ve seen it more in recent years, but it’s as important as it ever was that players look out for their own financial interest as much as they look out for their on-field career by aligning themselves with teams and teammates who are good fits.
The top WRs in the league are some of the most well-compensated players in all of football, and arguably the top paid talents outside the QB position. There are obviously a couple OL or other position players who come close, but to me, this is the place to start looking for where the true appeal of playing WR lies.
The Highest Paid WRs in the League:
Justin Jefferson – 4/140M (35/yr)
Ceedee Lamb – 4/136M (34/yr with 36M signing bonus)
AJ Brown – 3/96M extension puts him at 32M/yr
Amon-Ra St. Brown – just over 30M/yr
To give you some additional, deeper perspective, after the Top 15 WRs, there are a handful of guys making about 23M/year.
Comparing that with The Highest Paid CBs in the League:
Jalen Ramsey – 24.1M/yr
Patrick Surtain – 24M/yr
Jaire Alexander – 21M/yr
AJ Terrell – 20M/yr
And once again, after the Top 15 CBs, you see guys making about 13.5M/yr or in that general range. So about a 10M/yr decrease vs the “average” WRs in the league.
The argument we keep hearing is that Hunter intends to play both, and if teams are going to allow that, it will be interesting to see how they divide his time between defense and offense. And if Hunter truly wants to say he’s primarily a CB, let’s assume that he conservatively plays 60% of his snaps at CB, and the other 40% at WR. If this is the case, he’s more than likely going to get the Jimmy Graham treatment, when he was listed as a TE despite flexing out and essentially playing a WR role, and the Saints kept painting him as a TE during contract negotiations. And this was back when WRs and TE’s made much closer to the same AAV. I could very easily see this being the case with Hunter, and teams are going to try to pay him as a CB and not as a WR, even if that means sacrificing quality snaps at WR to make their point. We’ve seen teams do this… shoutout Sean Payton screwing Mark Ingram out of contract incentives every single season. And unless Hunter is going to get some realllllllll interesting incentives written into his rookie deal, there may not be much else he can do to boost his payday by playing both sides. So from the financial perspective, we’ve got a heavy lean on the pro-side of playing WR.
So let’s keep moving along and take a look from the on-field play perspective. While money is important, I still do truly believe a lot of these guys love game, and want to excel on the field. How does Hunter the WR stack up with Hunter the CB? I think this is where we need to take a closer look at his on-field product.
Let’s start with the fact that Hunter was the number one recruit in the nation… as a WR. The 2022 recruiting class was pretty packed with talent, a lot of whom will be entering the draft come late April of this year. But he wasn’t ranked as the top CB in this class, falling behind Will Johnson, Jaheim Singletary, and Domani Jackson (info pulled from Rivals in their article leading up to these guys committing back in 2021, a lot of other sites you’ll notice have updated their recruiting class rankings in 2023 and 2024 to reflect info they were not suggesting at the time of the class commits…. shame).
But High School is High School… what’s Hunter done at both positions in college? I think the important caveat we all have to acknowledge here is that Hunter did not play an elite schedule last year in the Big 12 (and even less elite during his time at Jackson State), and therefore didn’t see many top WRs in the nation when he played corner, nor did he face a lot of the top DBs when he lined up at WR, making both arguments a bit tougher to judge. But let’s take a look at the schedule anyways:
Colorado’s Schedule last year:
Two years ago against Arizona, Hunter covered Tet McMillan on 5 targets, allowing 3 catches for 15 yards, including a 2 yard TD that tied the game 24-24. McMillan was targeted a total of 15 times in the game, and ran many more routes with Hunter not on him. So in the 2024 contest, how many times did they line up? Well unfortunately Hunter left early with a shoulder injury after 1 tackle on defense and 2 catches for 17 yards, while Tet went 5/38 with no evidence Hunter ever covered him. So in the one game we may have been able to draw some fair conclusions about how Hunter would do against another NFL bound WR, he picked up a knock and left us guessing. DANGIT!
I think it’s also important to take a look at the best WRs in the Big 12 that Hunter actually faced off with and to consider how he did against them.
So who are the top WRs in the Big 12? Let’s take a list and see who Hunter played and how he did on them:
Pretty solid stats against most of the best the Big 12 has to offer, and nothing he can do about the fact that Colorado didn’t play Iowa State this year. You’d really only say that Jayce Brown and RJ Harvey had good games against him, and in college those games are going to happen from time to time. However, from a larger scale perspective, I wanted to look at the history of WRs coming out of the Big 12, to see how they stack up and what we may glean from the level of competition Hunter truly faced.
Big 12 WRs drafted from 2014-2023 (Bold = hits), (Italics = Jury is out):
Quentin Johnston, Marvin Mims, Derius Davis, Xavier Hutchinson, Tyquan Thornton, Erik Ezukanma, Mike Woods, Tylan Wallace, CeeDee Lamb, Jalen Reagor, Denzel Mims, Devin Duvernay, Collin Johnson, Marquise Brown (toss up), Jalen Hurd, Hakeen Butler, Gary Jennings Jr, James Washington, Keke Coutee, Dylan Cantrell, Marcell Ateman, DeDe Westbrook, Shelton Gibson, Corey Coleman, Josh Doctson, Sterling Shepard, Jakeem Grant, Kolby Listenbee, Kevin White, Tyler Lockett, Mario Alford.
Not a ton of guys who leap off the page at you. So you can take this as an argument on both sides really. Hunter did fine in his division, and got a high DB grade out of it, but did he really lock up anyone that good? Did he lock up anyone who is going to be an absolute killer in the NFL? I don’t think we can say that beyond a shadow of a doubt.
So I guess the argument becomes, does Hunter want to buck the “trend” and become one of the best WRs in the NFL and put his name alongside CeeDee Lamb’s, or does he want to be a CB who will be facing the highest level of competition he’s ever seen? It’s definitely not an easy decision, and one I don’t envy.
With all that being said, it’s important to mention one big thing… Hunter became the first player ever to win both the Fred Biletnikoff and Chuck Bednarik Awards, given to the best WR and the best defensive player of the year respectively. So even given the easier schedule, Hunter made his mark and took home both coveted awards, as well as winning the Heisman Trophy over Ashton Jeanty, who many saw as a viable candidate to win as well.
So the last piece we really have left to focus on is his legacy. Is this purely about making a statement that he can AND WILL play both positions at an elite level? Does he have the stamina to get this done in the NFL? Tony Pollard, rather recently, remarked that he used to get fatigued after about 20-25 touches, and while RB is probably a little more physically demanding than WR/CB, I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect a guy like Hunter to roll out there for 60-80 snaps a game. Certainly not if longevity is of any interest to him. But let’s just, for a moment, imagine that he can do it. He’s a lockdown corner and a Top 10 WR in the league… he will have cemented himself as one of the best football players to ever set foot on an NFL field, and that’s just a straight up fact.
Easier said than done, and quite frankly a seemingly impossible task to accomplish, but boy would that be a sight to see.
So what conclusions, if any, have we drawn? Financial side says play WR and focus on that. On-field performance is probably a toss up, maybe slightly leaning towards CB. Legacy perspective says give it your best shot to play both and hope that you crush it.
I think it’s easy to see why this is such a tough decision for a young kid, because I’m just an old has-been sitting at a computer and I couldn’t tell him which one to pick… this is his actual life with potentially hundreds of millions of dollars hanging in the balance. What a nice problem to have!
