Non-News of Jaguars' Travis Hunter Travels Fast

Two small words these days can whip up a frenzy of sports media aggregation that threatens to overtake whatever real news may lay at the heart of the entire breathless scrum.

It's like a pee-wee soccer match where one four-year-old can track the ball, and the rest move as a herd, following the lead. It's like iron shavings trailing in a shifting mass around a moving magnet. 

That process is called aggregation.

In an interview Friday with Ian Rapaport on NFL Network's "The Insiders," Cameron Wolfe lays out his "The Wolfe of Ball Street" early offseason preview takes on the Jacksonville Jaguars, the Indianapolis Colts, and the Cleveland Browns.

Wolfe leans hard on "plan to" to suggest the Jaguars have revealed new information about their "unicorn" Travis Hunter.

The Jags' No. 2 pick in last year's draft, Wolfe bravely asserts, "is expected to be 100-percent full-go by Week 1" after having undergone LCL surgery on his left knee on Nov. 11.

In case the timing isn't clear here, he's saying the team is saying Hunter will be ready to play full-bore by ... Sunday, Sept. 6.

The big reveal? That's 204 days from now, Valentine's Day. And that's 299 days from the date of surgery. 

As it happens, Jags coach Liam Coen told CBSSports' Pete Prisco on Feb. 6 that he'd seen Hunter recently. "Travis looks great right now," Coen said. "I actually was in the weight room working out last week. Saw him bouncing around, bouncing through. Looks great walking around."

Team updates and interviews throughout the second half of the season, the postseason, and the offseason so far have repeatedly stressed that Hunter is on schedule with his recovery and rehab. They've been understandably cagey about exact dates.

LCL surgeries are complex, and recovery and a return to action typically take an NFL player between six and 12 months, depending on the severity of the injury, according to multiple orthopedic and medical sources. This is information that's been widely reported regarding Travis Hunter since the team announced his injury.

Nevertheless, Wolfe proclaims, "He will play both sides again in 2026."

That nugget is either not really news, old news, or breaking news, depending on whether you work as an assignment editor, a reporter, or an aggregator.

Wolfe then teases the big reveal using the modal auxiliary "may" to suggest the possibility, but not certainty, he'll provide some original reporting: "The big change MAY come in the usage" (one can't think he intended this pun) -- before dropping this hardly earth-shattering piece of journalism:

"From what I understand, they plan to play him as a full-time cornerback, a part-time receiver, which is a switch from last year, when he played more than double of his snaps at receiver than cornerback."

It's true Hunter was utilized more on offense than defense before he was injured in non-contact practice on Oct. 30. In the seven games he appeared in for the Jaguars, Hunter played 324 snaps on offense and 162 on defense (with three on special teams).

They "plan to" ... "from what I understand."

Throughout the interview, one waits for this NFL insider to say "according to" someone in the organization who is a legitimate source for the kind of information allegedly disclosed here. When ESPN's Adam Schefter or Ian Rapaport or -- often reporting on the Jags -- NFL Network's Tom Pelissero break news, they say phrases such as "according to my sources" and "someone inside the organization confirmed" and even, when they're telling everyone something they already know, cite a specific source.

In the case of reporting up-to-date news on Travis Hunter, Wolfe only has to go back to what's already been discussed by the Jags' brain trust of general manager James Gladstone and coach Liam Coen -- and then follow the breadcrumbs explicitly laid out for anyone to follow.

To wit, in the end-of-season press conference on Jan. 14, Gladstone told reporters that Hunter's rehab was going as expected, and the rookie two-way superstar was "hitting it hard."

"We still expect him to play on both sides of the ball," Gladstone said a month ago.

Then Gladstone added, with regard to the team's thinking going forward:

"Obviously, you can take a peek at expiring contracts on our roster and which side of the ball has more. Obviously, at this point, walking into the offseason, corner is a position that we have a few guys who are on expiring contracts. By default, you can expect there to be a higher emphasis on his placement."

So, who at cornerback are the guys Gladstone is referencing? Montaric Brown, Greg Newsome II, Chris Braswell, and Keith Taylor.

If Wolfe recently spoke to a Jaguars source who works inside the building at One Shipyard Place, then say so.

Usually, when reporters are sharing original reporting, they do this -- proudly.

When they don't, it signals they're really going on hearsay or rehashing what's already out there.

So when the herd rushed in the past 24 hours to report on Wolfe's "report," it was treated as breaking news -- and now saturates the online sports media space and Google searches in a way that ends up defeating the purpose of collecting and reporting legitimate and timely news. 

It feels a little like we're celebrating after hammering home an own-goal.

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