Travis Hunter Thinks Being A Two-Way Football Star Is Harder Than What Shohei Ohtani Does

Who brings more value to his team, Travis Hunter or Shohei Ohtani? Hunter has a clear opinion.

Yesterday at the NFL combine, Hunter made it clear that no matter where he goes in the NFL (he’ll likely be a top-5 pick) that he wants to be a two-way player like he was for the Colorado Buffaloes. He’s phenomenal at both, so good, in fact, that he was able to use his versatility as the driving force behind his Heisman-winning campaign last season.

Not many players at the professional level play two different positions in a sport that requires distinct offensive and defensive formations. Hunter is certainly amazing and unique at the level he performs, but he might have too high of an opinion of his skills set. 

During the same interview that he said he wants to play offense and defense, he told Alex Butler of UPI that he brings more to the table for a team than Ohtani does.

I hate to burst Hunter’s bubble, but he’s wrong, and I’m going to make a case for Ohtani without tearing down Hunter.

Like I said, the future NFL star had an insane senior year in college - 92 catches for 1,152 yards and 14 touchdowns (plus a rushing score). On defense, he recorded four interceptions, 32 tackles, and broke up 11 passes. Normally, we would look at those stats and think they were accumulated by two different players. This was all Hunter’s work - and Hunter’s alone.

He also averaged playing 115 snaps per game last season - I got tired just thinking about that. There’s a reason that he’s being labeled as a unicorn. However, he’s not the only one who can put up insane numbers.

Last season, Ohtani hit 50 home runs while stealing 50 bases (the first player to do that) while hitting .310 and driving in 130 runs. Of course, he won't put up these