How Many Targets Will Travis Hunter Get?

Trying to gauge a range of outcomes for fantasy's most confounding player

Hey folks,

James Gladstone gave an interview today on Travis Hunter that raises the most concern I’ve felt since he was drafted by the Jacksonville Jaguars.

In summer practices open to the media, Hunter took reps at WR five times, CB one time, and both one time. This was music to my ears as someone optimistic about Hunter and hoping to see him play as much offense as possible.

In the interview, Gladstone indicated that Hunter’s high proportion of snaps on offense this summer may say less about his proportion of offense snaps in-season, and was more about the complexity of learning an offense, and Hunter’s level of comfort playing defense. This interview solidified for me that the current plan is for Hunter to play as a legitimate two-way option in 2025.

However, being a two-way player still leaves a lot of room for variance in terms of his fantasy output. Does two-way mean he will play equal snaps on both sides? And just how many total snaps can he take?

It’s impossible for anyone to answer these questions with any certainty. But we can estimate the effect of each marginal offensive snap on Hunter’s fantasy value in a way that’s more sophisticated than I think is often discussed.

I believe it is safe to assume that if Hunter does play both ways, he will play a materially higher proportion than 50% of the total snaps. I.E. he will play more total snaps than what would be a ‘100%’ snap rate on either side.

If that’s not the case, playing him both sides makes absolutely zero sense. Why play someone on 50% of the offensive snaps and 50% defensive snaps when you could simply play them on 100% of the offensive or defensive snaps? You’re not getting any extra plays out of Hunter in this scenario, and you’re likely diminishing his impact by having him cross-train, while hurting the rhythm of your offense and defense by subbing a player in and out throughout the game.

We also know he won’t play literally every snap.

Let’s call that scenario (playing every snap on offense and defense) a 200% snap rate, and the first scenario (playing 50% of each) a 100% snap rate.

I think the reasonable expectation should be somewhere between 120% and 140%.

Let’s also assume that the commitment to playing both ways is legitimate, and therefore he will not play less than 40% of the snaps on either side, and that he won’t play more than 90% on either side.

From there, your range of outcomes includes playing 90% of one and 40% of the other, playing 80% of one and 60% of the other, 60-70% of each, or several other iterations.

So how would his fantasy value change based on the number of offensive snaps he plays?

Let’s try to model this out in a way that — while imprecise — should help you from simply throwing your hands in the air to avoid reckoning with such a difficult and unique projection.

We should not simply divide his projected points at 100% snaps by whatever amount his snaps are reduced. That would fail to recognize the selection bias inherent in per-route data.

Liam Coen decides who is on the field for which play. We cannot pretend that Hunter is equally likely to be the first read on any given play or game situation. In attempting to manage his snaps, we should be confident that a disproportionate number of snaps that Hunter rests for are either run plays or pass plays that would have been first-read targets for other players whether Hunter was on the field or not.

This is similar to the argument against projecting a player with elite per-route data to retain their per-route stats if given a full-route share.

What ultimately effects Hunter’s fantasy production is not how many snaps he plays or how many routes he runs, but how many targets he receives. His route rate will likely be much higher than his snap rate, and his target rate per route will be inversely correlated to his route rate.

So how do we estimate this?