“He Played 5 Seasons Worth of Snaps in College”: Analyst on the Cause of Travis Hunter’s Season-Ending Injury

In a big blow to the Jacksonville Jaguars, the team announced that their first-round pick, No. 2 overall Travis Hunter, underwent knee surgery to repair an LCL tear, ending his rookie year prematurely. And of course, because it’s two-way man Travis Hunter, there has been no shortage of opinions on what caused the setback.

The team reports that the injury occurred during practice and was of the frustrating non-contact variety. This has led some pseudo-NFL analysts, including Emmanuel Acho, to get on their “I told you so” high horse and confidently claim that this only happened because Hunter was playing both ways.

In fact, Acho went as far as to say that it was “asinine” for Hunter to believe he could play both ways in the NFL without it having negative effects on his body.

“Think about the toll it took on him in college. Though he only played three seasons, you could say he really played five seasons. Because he played five seasons worth of snaps… By the time he got to Colorado, every season Travis Hunter was playing, was two seasons,” Acho said on Speakeasy.

There’s really no way to know the main reason for Hunter’s injury, so calling someone “asinine” seems a bit harsh here. Hunter is far from the only player to suffer a non-contact injury in practice. So, are all of those non-contact injuries the result of overuse? Or is it just Hunter’s because it fits a certain narrative?

Correlation does not always equal causation. To use a classic example, just because a rise in ice cream prices occurs at the same time as a rise in shark attacks doesn’t mean there’s any causal relationship there.

Acho also puffed out his chest and cited his injury credentials, saying he suffered three ligament tears in his knees that required surgery. That, however, pretty much goes against his entire point: Acho was never a major player. Those same ligament tears he suffered weren’t caused by overuse, so why is he so sure Hunter’s was?

Hunter is not even top five in snaps on his own team

That’s right, Hunter was far from being overused. He played both ways, sure, but not as a full-time player. He had 324 snaps on offense and 162 on defense. That total of 486 snaps would rank him ninth on his own team.

There are also 51 non-OL offensive players across the league with more snaps than his 486 two-way total, including QBs, RBs, WRs, and TEs. On defense, there are a whopping 120 players who have played more snaps on that one side of the ball than Hunter has played on both. Acho’s argument is really falling apart, eh?

And on top of that, Hunter was splitting time in practice between offense and defense. It wasn’t like he would do one full practice on offense, then stay for an extra full session on defense. Overall, he was doing as much work on the field as any of his teammates.

Head coach Liam Coen has spoken on these theories abounding about whether or not Hunter should continue playing both ways after the injury.

“I understand there’s a lot of questions about if he’ll remain a two-way player and all those kind of things. All of that is very premature and at the end of the day, like every player on this roster, he’ll be evaluated at the end of the season and we’ll be able to give him his three better, three best and the things that we need to continue to improve upon and the things we need to build on.”

Hunter is expected to return to full football activities in about six months. And there are encouraging examples of players who suffered LCL tears that have come back as good as ever. Cowboys running back Javonte Williams, who also tore his ACL when he got hurt, has been excellent this season. Chiefs wideout Rashee Rice looks as good as ever after his LCL issue.

We can probably shut off the alarm bells here.