Jaguars’ Travis Hunter dealing with injury as season nears

Travis Hunter won’t be on the field for the Jaguars’ preseason finale on Saturday.

The wide receiver/cornerback is dealing with an upper body injury he sustained during a scrimmage last week, but Jacksonville is still holding out hope that the rookie can play in its season opener. 

“It was more just do we want him now or potentially not [playing against] Carolina [in Week 1],” head coach Liam Coen said on Thursday, per ESPN. “It was more just being smart about the next few weeks because the ultimate goal is Carolina.

“Could he have probably gone? I think so. If this was Carolina, would he have probably played? Yeah, so we’re moving in the right direction.”

Hunter, who was taken No. 2 overall by the Jags in April’s draft, missed Jacksonville’s second preseason game last weekend with the injury as well, but he did make his debut in their opener against the Steelers on Aug. 9. 

“I was a little nervous at first,” Hunter said after that contest. “But after the first play, I was good.”

The Colorado product played both sides of the ball — 10 snaps on offense at receiver and eight snaps on defense at cornerback.

He received some modest praise from Coen after catching two passes for nine yards on offense. 

“He made a couple good catches on some option routes and missed the one tackle defensively that I noticed,” Coen said. “I’ll have to watch the tape on how he operated defensively a little bit more, but I thought offensively, he made the right decisions on those option routes. Made a good catch, almost broke out of that one where Trevor [Lawrence] put it behind him on that third down we talked about, but I’ll have to go watch the tape a little bit more to know more.”

On defense, Hunter had a missed tackle and appeared to be a bit confused about the call before the snap.

“We can flush it right away and just get back to business,” Hunter said. “I know what I’ve got to do next time.”