Travis Hunter
By Matt Galatzan
Contributing Sports Writer
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Earlier this week, No. 1 NFL Draft Prospect Travis Hunter made a bold claim, telling reporters that he would never play football again if the team that drafted him did not let him play both sides of the ball.
"It's never playing football again," Hunter told CBS Sports. "Because I've been doing it my whole life, and I love being on the football field. I feel like I could dominate on each side of the ball, so I really enjoy doing it... I just feel very confident in myself, and I got a competitive spirit that I can do whatever I put my mind to, and I feel like I can do it."
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In response to those claims, the Cleveland Browns GM Andrew Berry hinted at how his team would likely utilize Hunter, and it likely not exactly what the hybrid athlete wants to hear.
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Per Albert Breer of Sports Illustrated, the Berry said that the Browns won't put a "cap" on how much Hunter plays, but would like for his focus to be on offense.
"We would see his first home at receiver and his second home on the defensive side," Berry said.
Obviously, this is not the Browns outright saying that Hunter won't play both sides of the ball. But it does indicate, at least on its face, that they would ostensibly use him in the exact opposite way that the Cowboys and other teams use his mentor and head coach Deion Sanders, who played primarily at corner, and occasionally at receiver.
That does not sound like something that Hunter would be a fan of. Instead, he would prefer to play 100 percent of snaps on both sides of the ball, no matter how realistic or not that sounds at the NFL level.
Sanders, however, he is actually built to do just that.
"The NFL is a slow game," Sanders said at Colorado's Pro Day. "That game is more conducive to him being successful than a college game. College is tempo, tempo, tempo. Now, you're talking about you have to be in shape. Pros, how many seconds between plays? Please, he's going to go jogging after the darn game because he's going to have all that energy man. He is built for this."
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