Jaguars News: Liam Coen’s Approach Toward Travis Hunter Fails to Escape Scrutiny

The two-way player is a figure from a bygone era, a black-and-white photograph of a leather-helmeted ironman who never left the field. It’s not every day you get a player like that. And for Jacksonville Jaguars head coach Liam Coen, every single decision he makes about how to deploy rookie phenom Travis Hunter is being watched and criticized. It takes a lot to make a 2 way player work in the modern era; there is no proven way to do it, or at least until now.

As Willie Colon pointed out, on the First Things First segment, “I want to see that 12 up close because this isn’t college. This is the pros. The level of durability, the level of attention to detail is extremely different.” The underlying question is simple: Can a 185-pound frame withstand the weekly car crash that is the NFL while playing nearly every snap?

Colon is far from alone in his skepticism, stating bluntly, “If you allow him to make this a goal each and every week, they’re doing him a disservice, right? Because they’re looking forward to him playing both sides of the ball. I simply don’t think he can hold up. Not at 185 pounds, coach.”

On the same segment, Coach Eric Mangini also expressed his doubts, stating, “These are men, and these are proud men, and these are men that all feel that they’re different and all got there because they’re the best of the best. So, he’s (Hunter) a little bit slight to be going out and doing that week in and week out with that kind of volume. It’s not. It’s hard to imagine it’s going to last.” No one currently in the NFL believes that Hunter can play both ways day in, day out. It’s hard to imagine, since there is no precedent for what we are about to witness in this modern era.

If Hunter achieves his goal of playing full-time at receiver and cornerback, he’d join legendary two-way players like:

. Sammy Baugh (QB/Safety/Punter, 1937-1952), who led the NFL in completion percentage, punting yards, and interceptions in 1943.

. Don Hutson (End/Safety/Kicker, 1935-1945) revolutionized the receiver position while recording over 30 interceptions and 1,211 receiving yards with 17 touchdowns in 1942.

. Chuck Bednarik (LB/Center, 1949-1962), known as “Concrete Charlie,” was the last true “60-minute man” playing full-time on both sides.

. Bronko Nagurski (FB/OT/DT, 1930-37, 1943) remains the only college player named a consensus All-American at multiple positions and helped the NFL’s first 1,000-yard rusher.

. Clyde Turner (LB/Center, 1940-1952) anchored the Bears’ T Formation while leading the NFL with eight interceptions in 1942.

. Mel Hein (LB/Center, 1931-1945) was the NFL’s first MVP in 1938, with Bill Belichick calling him better on defense than his Hall of Fame center position.

Hunter follows coach Deion Sanders’s footsteps. Sanders played primarily as a returner and cornerback, but caught 36 passes for 475 yards as a receiver in 1996. While not comparable to Hunter’s NFL goals, Sanders showed how to beat the odds by playing MLB and NFL simultaneously.

The level of scrutiny on Liam Coen is immense, on how to manage Hunter. Coen, a sharp offensive mind forged under Sean McVay, quickly realized there is no blueprint for this. “No other coaches dealt with this,” Coen admitted. “Really, you have to go back and look at high school because players go both ways.” And so, with no NFL roadmap, how are they going to manage this unicorn?

Coen and his staff began crafting their own approach. Coen’s approach is more about data points, a delicate dance of load management and caloric intake. It’s about protecting him from his own relentless motor. Every step Hunter takes is monitored via Catapult trackers, his body a dataset of max velocities, yardage, and high-end speeds.

The art and science of building Hunter into an Ironman

To ensure the player isn’t being worn down by the very thing that makes him special: his endless energy. “In some ways, we have to protect him from himself,” Coen noted, revealing the core paradox of the project. It’s a 24/7 operation involving sports scientists, dietitians, and coaches constantly communicating to ask, as Coen put it, “Man, OK, we need to trim it here,” to make sure he has time to lift, recover, or even just eat enough to offset the staggering caloric burn of a practice where he can easily eclipse the 4 miles his single-position peers run.

NFL, American Football Herren, USA Jacksonville Jaguars Rookie Minicamp May 10, 2025 Jacksonville, FL, USA Jacksonville Jaguars wide receiver Travis Hunter 12 completing a passing drill during rookie minicamp at Miller Electric Center. Jacksonville Miller Electric Center FL USA, EDITORIAL USE ONLY PUBLICATIONxINxGERxSUIxAUTxONLY Copyright: xTravisxRegisterx 20250510_bd_na7_195

The preseason offered a tiny glimpse of the plan in action—11 of the 12 offensive snaps, 8 defensive snaps against Pittsburgh—but also a warning flare: an upper-body injury that sidelined him for two weeks. While GM James Gladstone has declared him “fully healthy,” the incident was a stark reminder of the fragility everyone is talking about.

Yet, the Jaguars press on, believing in the uniqueness of the athlete. They see the college player who logged an almost incomprehensible 1,460 snaps in just 13 games. They see the first player to ever win the Biletnikoff and Bednarik awards in the same season. When Danny Parkins offered a counterpoint to Coach Mangiani, saying, “I think we thought that about Shohei Ohtani until we saw him do it,” Mangini’s retort was swift and definitive: “Yeah, that’s baseball.”

And that’s the divide. Football is a sport of violent collisions and contact. Liam Coen’s intricate, data-driven, and scrutinized approach is the Jaguars’ attempt to prove that a once-in-a-generation talent can, in fact, rewrite the rules. The entire league is watching to see if the approach is genius or folly.