Shohei Ohtani is known as a “unicorn” of baseball for its rare ability to play both as an elite striker and launcher.
The NFL may soon have its own double -meaning superstar.
Travis Hunter is perhaps the first global choice of this year’s draft after being appointed the best player in university football in 2024.
The NFL has not had a draft prospect like him for 27 years, a player who has excelled both in offense and in defense.
Hunter is undoubtedly the greatest two -way player in academic football in history, but the NFL teams do not know what to do with him.
BBC Sport examines why the 21 -year -old is so special and the dilemma facing the NFL scouts while they are preparing for the project.
Who is Travis Hunter?
Hunter was the best -classified recruit in the country after playing the cornerback and the wide receiver at the Lycée en Georgie.
He undertook to play university football at Jackson State in 2022 so that he could play under Deion Sanders, who won two Super Bowls as a double -way player in the 1990s.
When Sanders became coach of Colorado in 2023, Hunter followed and continued to progress on both sides of the ball.
During his third and last university season, he became the first player to win the prizes for the best defensive player of the year and the best receiver.
He also became the first double -meaning player to win the Heisman Trophy for best player since Charles Woodson (1997), ensuring that he will be one of the first players selected at the draft, which takes place from April 24 to 26.
Which double -meaning players have played in the NFL?
The NFL teams had the chance to assess the best of this year’s prospect project during the weekend in scouting combines.
Although Hunter has chosen to participate in any of the exercises, he spoke to team officials and the media, which clearly shows that he wants to continue playing full time in attack and defense.
Last season, he played the 13 Colorado games, affirming four interceptions and 96 receptions for 1,258 yards and 15 affected. He played 714 (87%) of their offensive shots and 748 (83%) of their defensive.
But few played regularly in the NFL. Chuck Bednarik is the last real two-way player, having played in the center and the secondary for Philadelphia of 1949-1956.
Since 2006, Patrick Ricard has been one of the six players to have played 200 offensive offensive and 200 snaps, but the back of Baltimore has rarely played in defense since 2019.
William ‘The Refrigerator’ Perry, Troy Brown, Mike Truebel and Julian Edelman also played both, but none did regularly in the same season, as Sanders did with Dallas Cowboys in 1996.
After being drafted, Woodson played almost entirely in defense, and Sanders told the teams not to write Hunter if they do not plan to give him the chance to play both.
“They say that nobody has ever done it as I do, but I tell them that I am just different,” said Hunter.
Where will Hunter play in the NFL?
Hunter says that his role in the NFL is “always in the air” and “to the organization” which writes it, because everyone seems to have a different idea of the best way to use it.
Tennessee Titans have the first choice of draft. Last week, managing director Mike Borgonzi called Hunter “special”, while head coach Brian Callahan said he was “unique”.
The two said they saw Hunter starting like a cornerback, Callahan adding: “Then you find ways to intervene in the offense because it becomes more comfortable.” He even suggested that Hunter could also return clearance boots.
The Cleveland Browns have the second choice of recovery, and the general manager Andrew Berry said that Hunter was “a unicorn” who would play “the receiver mainly first”.
New England has the fourth choice, and their executive Eliot Wolf said: “It will probably specialize in one (position) and minor in the other.”
Hunter is categorical, he wants to do both full -time, adding: “It’s not my job to understand it.”
Hunter recorded an average of 111.5 snaps per game with the Colorado – 40 more than the highest number of NFL SNFs last season – but he hopes to imitate the Baseball Ohtani star and show that double -way players can “become a thing” in the NFL too.
“I do a lot of treatment,” he said. “People do not see this part – which I do for my body to make sure I am 100% in every game.
“I did it at the college level, where you rarely get breaks. There are many more breaks in the NFL, so I know I can do it.”
