Using PFF Stats to Determine What Position Travis Hunter Should Play in the NFL

• Unique talent: Travis Hunter is one of the few players in recent NFL history who has a real chance to excel on both ends of the field in the NFL.

• Cornerback might be his best option: Hunter’s mealsurables, PFF’s Wins Above Replacement and Playing Style indicate that a primary corner role would provide the highest return on investment.

• Discover your advantage with a PFF+ subscription: Get full access to all of our fantasy tools in the season, including weekly rankings, WR/CB Matchup Charts, weekly projectionsthe Start-Sit-optimizer and more. Sign up now!

Estimated reading time: 10 minutes

It feels like we just had this conversation, but with ColoradoTravis Hunter has put on another show this season at receiver and cornerback. I wanted to dig even deeper into where he could and should play in the NFL using some PFF-focused data points.

Three games into the 2024 season, Hunter has recorded 30 receptions for 332 receiving yards and five touchdowns at receiver while forcing two incompletions, throwing an interception and allowing just 81 receiving yards at cornerback. He has played 202 snaps on defense and 181 snaps on offense. He has an 84.3 coverage grade at cornerback and an 82.3 offensive grade as a receiver.

He’s a top-five prospect on PFF’s 2025 big board, but where do you put him in the NFL? He plays two positions now, and if he can play both in the NFL, there might not be a debate. Still, he’ll likely have to pick one or the other.

Colorado lists Hunter at 6-foot-1 and 185 pounds. As a wide receiver, that would put him in the 48th and 15th percentiles in the NFL, but as a cornerback, his height and weight would fall in the 71st and 19th percentiles. So his size is closer to that of an NFL cornerback than a receiver.

But what about the value of the positions themselves? For that, PFF has a wins above replacement (WAR) metric we can rely on.

In 2023, Charvarius Ward posted the highest WAR rating for an NFL cornerback at 1.01, thanks to his high single coverage and solid run defense numbers. Darious Williams, Jaylon Johnson, Trent McDuffie And Gardner’s sauce all scored above 0.80 to complete the top five. Over the past five years, Jalen Ramsey has the highest WAR average at the position with 0.58. There are three other corners who have a WAR average above 0.50 during that time — Ward, Jaire Alexander And Kendall Fuller – Jamel Dean narrowly missed that mark by 0.49.

As for wide receivers, CeeDee Lam recorded the highest WAR score in 2023 at 0.65. From a five-year sample size from 2019-2023, Davante Adams has the highest average score of 0.49. Justin Jefferson And Tyreek Heuvel are the only other recipients with an average score above 0.40.

So what does this mean? The WAR numbers aren’t meant to tell you that cornerbacks are better prospects than wide receivers. However, they do help contextualize the value at certain positions and the scarcity that can exist with top-tier play within each position.

Simply put, there are more talented NFL wide receivers capable of great production than cornerbacks — or at the very least, it’s easier to get a collective of receivers capable of great production than it is with corners.

It’s like that quote from “Moneyball”: When Billy Beane, played by Brad Pitt, says, “You’re still trying to replace (Jason) Giambi. I told you we can’t do it, and we can’t. What we can do now is maybe recreate him. Recreate him in his entirety.”

WAR tells us that it’s easier to recreate the production of top receivers overall than it is to replace top-tier production at cornerback. Maybe other receivers in the league can’t quite do it like Hill or Jefferson, but collectively it’s possible. Still, no receiver can match Hill’s speed, so there’s certainly some nuance here. Corners and receivers also have different alignments and roles, and so “replacing” production is different — coverage specialties, fit into a defensive scheme, or how they win as a receiver, for example.

There’s also an element of highs and lows here. While the highs of great cornerback play are notable, as you can see in the WAR numbers, the difference between that single-season high and the best averages over a five-year period is about half. This shows how inconsistent cornerbacks can be, while receivers tend to have more consistent success.

So when we talk about a player like Travis Hunter, there’s obviously some nuance to it, but on an equal level, his value as a cornerback seems to be greater than his value as a receiver, especially given his ability to take the ball away (ball skills) and his ability to cover the ball in one position.

We also need to talk about contracts, because contracts can also be an indication of value. NFL owners don’t usually lie with their checkbooks. Jalen Ramsey just signed a contract to become the highest paid cornerback in the NFL, with an average salary of $24.1 million per year. Justin Jefferson is currently the highest paid wide receiver in the NFL with an average of $35 million. When it comes to guarantees, Denzel Ward has the most fully guaranteed money of any cornerback at $44.5 million, while Jefferson has the most fully guaranteed money at $88.7 million. Added together, Ramsey’s $24.1 million per year would rank 13th as a receiver, and Ward’s $44.5 million in fully guaranteed money would rank seventh.

To sum it all up, Hunter is a more unique talent as a cornerback, so he should be drafted as such. However, he is good enough to play both sides of the ball in the NFL, just maybe not full-time like he is now. Maximizing his skills on both sides of the ball is also more plausible if he is drafted as a corner. There may be a world where he can hone his skills as a corner while playing spot duty on offense every week. However, if he were to be drafted as a receiver, I think he would be great, but barring injury, I don’t see him filling in for a handful of cornerback snaps every week.

I don’t think there is a “wrong” answer here. Hunter is so damn good that he could thrive in both. However, in terms of where his highest value would lie, measurables, WAA, and playing style would tell us that a primary corner role would yield the highest return on investment.