Every spring we get a fresh batch of pre‑draft storylines — forty‑times that turn heads, anonymous scouts tossing smoke screens, the occasional leaked Wunderlic score. 

But it’s not every year a projected top‑three pick calmly tells the NFL he's "never playing football again" if he's not allowed to play both ways. That’s exactly the curveball Colorado star Travis Hunter lobbed during a sit‑down with CBS Sports. Hunter’s message was clear and direct: take me as a receiver and a corner, or don’t bother.

Hunter Draws His Line

Travis Hunter’s stance didn’t sneak up on anyone who’s followed him since his early college days. The kid has always been wired to do double duty. Still, hearing him put retirement on the table made everyone raise an eyebrow. When he was asked if he had to choose between one side of the ball, or never playing the sport again, he had a simple answer:

It's never playing football again... Because I’ve been doing it my whole life, and I love being on the football field.

There’s no hesitation in the way Hunter talks about it. He didn’t sound like a guy bluffing for leverage — he sounded dead serious. And it’s not just talk. He played over 1,400 snaps in 2024, almost evenly split between offense and defense. That kind of workload speaks for itself.

Why He Thinks It’ll Work in the Pros

College coaches love to bring up two-way players from back in the day — guys like Charles Woodson or Champ Bailey — before adding something like, "Yeah, but the league's too specialized now." Hunter’s not really hearing that. He thinks it’s still possible, and he’s not shy about saying it.

I feel like I could dominate on each side of the ball.

Big word, dominate. But the film backs him up. On offense, Hunter put up 1,258 receiving yards and 14 touchdowns last fall, winning the Biletnikoff for college football’s top wideout. Flip the tape, and you’ll find four interceptions and the Bednarik Award for the nation’s best defensive player. That’s more than a dual threat; that’s a statistical mic drop.

His camp loves to remind skeptics that NFL's pace is, weirdly, slower than college: huddles, play clocks, TV timeouts that feel like waiting in line at the DMV. If Hunter can log 120‑plus snaps on a brisk Saturday in Boulder, why couldn’t he carve out 65 on an NFL Sunday?

Front‑Office Temperature Check

Hunter says he’s told every team exactly where he stands. So far, nobody has slammed the door. That doesn’t mean they’re sold, but it does suggest GMs are at least play‑acting the open mind.

• Cleveland Browns (No. 2 overall): GM Andrew Berry called Hunter a “unicorn,” adding, “In terms of Travis Hunter, cornerback or receiver, the answer is ‘yes.’”

• New York Giants: Joe Schoen told reporters he’s “not afraid” to let Hunter go Ironman if it helps Big Blue. Considering the Giants have holes on both sides, why wouldn't they?

• Baltimore Ravens: Never shy with an opinion, John Harbaugh sounded less convinced: “I don’t know if there’s enough hours in the day.” Hard to blame him — Harbaugh’s defense is basically grad school for DBs.

If you’re keeping score, that’s one enthusiastic yes, one we’ll give it a shot, and one pump the brakes. Welcome to draft season.

Deion Sanders Weighs In: Prime Knows a Thing or Two

Nobody pushes the two‑way narrative harder than Coach Prime — partly because it’s true, partly because it’s terrific recruiting ammo. Sanders, who once sandwiched an NFL game between World Series appearances, thinks the pro game is tailor‑made for Hunter’s stamina.

The NFL is a slow game. You huddle every play… He is built for this.

Prime’s not exactly neutral here, but the man did pick off 53 passes while moonlighting as a wideout, so the opinion carries weight. More importantly, Sanders’ willingness to let Hunter explore both roles in college built the confidence he's now carrying into draft night.

Rolling the Dice on a Two-Way Star

Let’s be real: drafting Hunter means balancing upside against one colossal “what if.”

If he delivers on the two‑way promise, you’ve bagged a potential All‑Pro at two premium positions on a single rookie contract. That’s salary‑cap nirvana.

If he can’t swing the workload, you might end up with a disgruntled star who’s already threatened to hang up his cleats. Front offices hate uncertainty almost as much as they love cheap talent.

Still, it’s not like Hunter is jumping from Division II; he’s played big‑boy snaps against elite competition and still looked fresh in November. The bigger concern is developmental bandwidth. Corner and receiver aren’t just roles you can pick up overnight — they take a ton of reps and muscle memory to really master. Finding enough practice snaps so he isn’t half‑baked at both spots will test even the most creative coaching staff.

What the Numbers Actually Tell Us

Statistics never win arguments by themselves, but they do nudge them along. Here’s Hunter’s 2024 in a nutshell:

That’s a workload most players would call a career, and he logged it in 13 games. More telling: Out of 378 cover snaps, he lined up in press coverage for nearly half of them and was only targeted 38 times — that’s just over 10 percent. He gave up 22 catches, 205 yards, and just one touchdown all year. Even more impressive? He only allowed six first downs all season, the lowest mark in the country.

Echoes of the Past, Glimpses of the Future

There are a few guys from the past you could loosely compare him to — Charles Woodson or Chuck Bednarik — but nobody came into the league saying, “I want to do both, or I’m not playing.” If Travis Hunter can actually pull this off, it might change how teams view top high school and college players moving forward.

Yeah, no one's done this before — but that’s kind of the point. No one thought Babe Ruth’s home run record would fall. No one believed a sub-four-minute mile was possible. Those things seemed untouchable… until someone came along and changed the game. Maybe Hunter's that guy. Somebody's always first.

Now We Wait

So here we are: less than two weeks from the 2025 NFL Draft, staring at a prospect who refuses to squeeze himself into a single‑position box. GMs are going to have to decide whether the juice of a two‑way superstar is worth the squeeze of rethinking practice scripts, roster math, and maybe even how we talk about positional value.

Whatever happens, draft night just got a lot more interesting. And if Hunter’s name is called by a team ready to let him chase double glory, buckle up — we might be watching the birth of football’s first true 21st‑century Ironman. If not? Well, the kid warned us.

Stats courtesy of Sports Reference.