Travis Hunter’s rookie season is over and we never really got a chance to see the two-way superstar that won the Heisman Trophy last season at Colorado. According to NFL Media's Ian Rapoport, Hunter will miss the rest of the 2025 season after undergoing knee surgery to repair his LCL. Rapoport added that there was no other damage to his knee, and it will take roughly six months to return to full activity.
There was no other damage besides the LCL. Some good news there. https://t.co/fZ0EgEnjyW
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) November 11, 2025
Hunter’s injury brings a screeching halt to a reality that hadn’t really existed before, in that playing on both sides of the ball in the NFL was always going to be an arduous task. The Jaguars weren’t able to find a way to let Hunter cook on either side, and as a result, he was non-existent on both.
Jacksonville traded up to the No. 2 pick to select Hunter last NFL Draft, giving up a first round pick in the process, which now looks like a massive mistake. After all, they expected him to be in the running for rookie of the year for offense or defense. Now the Jags are slowly playing themselves out of the playoff picture without their young star and have to re-evaluate how they Hunter’s usage next season.
Jacksonville is finding out the hard way how expensive the Travis Hunter gamble was
The Jaguars had no original plan when they drafted Hunter and now that trade is backfiring with his rookie season cut short. He played all of seven games and was nothing more than a role player. He was selected No. 2 overall with the ability to play offense and defense and the Jags essentially wasted him.
Figuring out how to utilize Hunter was going to be a challenge this season and the fact that he only had 298 receiving yards and one touchdown catch on offense with no interceptions and just three passes defended on defense, it was clear the Jags had no idea what they were doing with Hunter.
Good on the Browns for not making it their problem, but it goes to show why Jacksonville not having a plan with him was its biggest mistake. Had they found him a role early on, maybe they could have gotten more out of him. I don’t want to speculate and say the injury would have been avoided, but now his injury makes it less likely the Jags entertain using him as a two-way player in the future.
Is this the end of Travis Hunter playing both sides of the ball in Jacksonville?
The Jags have to decide how important it is that Hunter plays both offense and defense. Not just because he’s not producing on either side, but mainly because durability is in play now with his season-ending knee injury. Preserving his ability to still contribute to this team is more important than wasting time trying to make the two-way role work.
Hunter has a much better chance of impacting the game as a receiver than he does as a defensive back, which should have been how Jacksonville primarily used him. Though Jacksonville started to see that, it was too little too late. Now that his season’s over, you wonder if even Hunter himself will want to roll back his usage as a defensive back.
Just before he went down with his injury that got him on IR before ending his season, the Jaguars began increasing his role on offense. His best game of the season on offense was his last game, where he had the most receptions (eight) and targets (14) since his NFL debut. He also had a career high 101 receiving yards and his first career touchdown.
Jacksonville should have seen this headache coming and now they’ve hampered Hunter. Can he still be the player they need him to be when he comes back from injury? And more importantly, do they continue this failed, two-way experiment, or cut their losses and do whatever they can to get at least a star offensive player?
It’s a lesson to the rest of the NFL that when you get an uber athlete like Hunter, you have to have a plan. If you don’t, you’re wasting your time, draft capital and setting yourself up for failure.