Travis Hunter or Hunted?

Travis Hunter is an anomaly in the fantasy landscape that we all are trying to figure out. As someone who is going to play both ways, he is ideal for IDP formats. For non-IDP formats, his floor/ceiling is going to vary greatly depending on the answers to questions like:

• How much offense is he going to play?

• What is his production going to be like?

• Is he good enough to play both sides of the ball at an elite level?

• Is he going to hunt down and stop the other WRs on my team or be hunted down?

All these questions leading to the big one of, where should I draft him in my rookie drafts?

This is where I’m hoping to come in and shed some light on what Hunter accomplished in college on a deeper level and how I expect it to translate into the NFL. I wanted to see how his stats compared to the other WRs in this class, while also comparing the numbers some to last year’s big three: Marvin Harrison Jr., Rome Odunze, and Malik Nabers to see how he stood up against their generational talent. 

This is going to be an analytical analysis of Hunter. I’m not just going to be showing your typical stats, rather I went deeper to see a more true picture of what Hunter could be, so without further ado let’s dive in.

The first conclusion I came to is that I expect Hunter to run less routes and play less offensive snaps in the NFL. This might not seem like a big reveal to some, but there’s been buzz how Hunter will be playing more offense and less defense, so I wanted to approach this first. Outside of the fact that the player’s in the NFL are stronger, better, faster than college, I was shocked as to how much offense Hunter actually played last year. Let’s take a look at his offensive snap stats:

Let’s break it down. Hunter in comparison to the rest of this 2024 WR class, was in top percentiles for how often he was on the field. In regards to routes run, he was ranked 6th overall in college only behind Trebor Pena, LaJontay Wester, Raphael Williams Jr., Nick Nash, and Will Sheppard with 2 of those being his teammates. 

In comparison to last year’s top 3 WRs, Hunter played more Snaps/Game and ran more Routes/Game. I was shocked to see Hunter having played that much on offense. It’s a testament to his athleticism for sure, but also begs the question of if it’s sustainable in the NFL? So let’s compare this to NFL WRs last year on a per game basis since NFL plays more games than college. On a per game basis here’s how Hunter holds up:

• Routes/Game: 39

  • Only 4 NFL WRs last year ran more than 39 routes per game

    • Jerry Jeudy, Ja’Marr Chase, Michael Woods II, and DJ Moore

• Offensive Snaps/Game: 41.5

  • Only 5 NFL WRs last year had more than 41.5 offensive snaps per game

    • Jerry Jeudy, Ja’Marr Chase, DJ Moore, Michael Woods II, and Jakobi Meyers

Now I’m making no comments yet in regards to Hunter’s expected production. This is solely on how much offensive play time to expect out of him in the NFL. I don’t think anyone expects Hunter to be among the top 5/6 WRs in routes per game and offensive snaps per game while also playing defensive snaps. Meaning, I expect his routes/game and offensive snaps per game to go down, making his opportunities more limited. 

Now let’s dive into his college production to see how we might expect him to do wtih more limited offense opportunities. I want to compare these to how he did as opposed to his fellow players in college. For this, I took out the college stats of anyone who ran less than 100 routes. I don’t want players with 1 reception for 80 yards to throw off these comparisons. This will give us a better idea of how he truly did last year. Then for reference on the percentiles in my model: 

• <60 is we’ll say less than desirable

• 60-70th percentile being below average

• 70-80th being above average

• then 80+ being elite.

Starting off with his efficiency metrics. With the expectation of him playing less in college, how well he plays with the ball in his hand matters greatly. For efficiency stats, we’re looking at our per route, per reception, and other such stats seen below with his percentiles:

• Yards/Route Run: 2.51 - 49th percentile

• Yards/Reception: 13.1 - 46th percentile 

• Targeted QBR: 142.7 - 90th percentile

• Catch %: 79.3 - 79th percentile

• Drop Rate: 3 - 94th percentile

Looking at this paints an interesting picture. A high targeted QBR shows me he had an accurate QB while he also was great at catching the ball when it was thrown his way, which the catch % and drop rate back up even more. You love seeing WRs that have this as this correlates to them having a strong fantasy floor. He is quite low in the yards department though. That low in both yards/route run and yards/reception is quite discouraging as that correlates to a lower fantasy floor as he won’t get you many yards. These statements seem contradictory, but rather that shows formats that favor receptions will give Hunter a higher floor, while one’s which don’t will lower his floor. 

Moving onto his volume production. As Hunter ran the 6th most routes in college, you would hope that his volume stats measure up with the best. 

• Targets: 121 - 71st percentile

• Targets/Game: 9.3 - 65th percentile

• Receptions: 96 - 82nd percentile

• Receptions/Game: 7.4 - 82nd percentile

• Yards: 1258 - 81st percentile

• Yards/Game: 96.8 - 75.2 percentile

Looking at these volume metrics, they aren’t as high as I would have hoped for. Granted they still look quite good. He is in the elite tire for Receptions, Receptions/Game, and Yards but is lacking in the Targets department.

This tracks when you compare it with his efficiency stats though. He was great when the ball was thrown at him, but was lacking in the yardage/reception and route departments. This was made up by him having so many receptions. He did have volume metrics going his way, just not throughout his entire game. 

To summarize, here’s the picture I see painted for Hunter thus far:

• We should expect him to play less offensive snaps

• This will cause his yardage is going to drop as he doesn’t have high yards per route run and yards per reception

• He is great at catching the ball and is going to catch a high percentage of the balls thrown his way

In other words, expecting him to have a good number of receptions with a low total yardage translates to someone with a good floor but a low ceiling in fantasy formats. 

Thus in formats that support WRs getting receptions, Hunter is still a good WR to have on your team, while formats that don’t support receptions for WRs well should have you fading Hunter down your boards more.

To complete this, I will answer the question I made to start this off: Where should you draft Hunter in your rookie drafts?

As always it depends on your league format but in general, Hunter should be going in the mid-late 1st of your rookie drafts. As someone with an expected strong floor he is going to be a perfect plug and play in your Flex spot. His limited ceiling is going to prevent you from wanting him as your WR1/2 on a top tier competing team. He is still worth that mid-late 1st due to the consistency and athleticism he is going to provide.