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For the first time in four years, Travis Hunter and Shedeur Sanders will not be teammates when their football season begins.
Hunter, the second overall pick by the Jacksonville Jaguars, and Sanders, who waited two more days to hear his name called in the fifth round by the Cleveland Browns, starred together at Jackson State and Colorado during their college days.
Now, they are hoping to make an impact for their respective franchises in the NFL.
A big spotlight hovers over both players entering their rookie seasons for different reasons. For Hunter, GM James Gladstone has already vocalized the expectation that Hunter will be the generational talent that uplifts the team, as well as the city and game of football, during what he sees as a Hall of Fame career.
In Sanders’ case, he will be put in a quarterback battle that includes Joe Flacco, Kenny Pickett and Dillon Gabriel, the Oregon product who was drafted two rounds before him last month.
Hunter said he has spoken to Sanders since his slide down the NFL Draft board, and he knows his former teammate and great friend is ready to do the exact same thing he will to start his NFL journey.
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“We just going to work, man,” Hunter said while discussing his excitement to partner with Panini America, who will be giving him his first rookie trading card at the NFLPA Rookie Premiere in Los Angeles.
“We both got our heads down, and doing what we have to do. There’s a lot of doubters out there for him, and he’s going to go to work. I’m going to go to work and just going to do what we’ve always been doing.”
While the football world has been looking closely at how Sanders and Gabriel were competing in rookie minicamp, Hunter has exceeded the expectations the Jaguars had for him already.
Tony Boselli, the Jaguars’ executive vice president of Football Operations, told NFL Network that, while he understands Hunter is not even running in pads yet, the team has been taken back by watching him up close with his new teammates.
“We had high expectations. He’s exceeded my expectations,” Boselli said. “You see the athlete on the field, you see how he moves, the change in direction, the body control, but it’s the person that I’m most enamored with.”
As Hunter gets acclimated to his life in the NFL, he is also very aware of the leadership aspect of being a top pick. The Jaguars already have players like Trevor Lawrence, Travon Walker and Josh Hines-Allen as the veteran presence in the locker room, but Hunter knows he can be added to the mix as long as he does his job first.
The same goes for Sanders with the Browns.
“We definitely got to be leaders, especially me,” Hunter explained. “I was the number two overall pick, so I gotta come in and be a leader. Shedeur, he’s gotta go in there and work, earn his job just like me. But he’s also got to go in there and be the head of the offense, so he’s gotta go in there and be a leader.”
Hunter said his time with the Jaguars has been “great” thus far, and it will only continue as OTAs will ultimately lead into training camp this summer.
ONE OF ONE
As Hunter continues to put in the work, he is also excited for an important milestone in his early career – seeing himself on an NFL trading card for the first time.
Hunter partnered with Panini America, along with several other incoming rookies, where they will receive their first Panini NFL trading cards at the NFLPA Rookie Premiere.
“Just super excited to see myself on my own card, so it’s definitely a blessing,” he said.
One day, Hunter’s rookie card could be worth quite the pretty penny. But he understands it’s up to him to make that happen.
“I don’t know,” he said when asked how much he would pay for his rookie card. “I still got to put in some work.”
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