JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – James Gladstone said that he would never be timid in his quest to rebuild the Jaguars.
Consider his first test passed.
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The Jaguars made the biggest trade in franchise history on Thursday night, moving up in the draft to pick Colorado superstar Travis Hunter at No. 2. It was the top headline in the draft, dwarfing Tennessee’s pick of Cam Ward at the top spot. And it’s easily the most seismic draft move in Jacksonville’s 31-year history. Gladstone, the first-time general manager who learned the craft with the Rams in Los Angeles, saw a franchise-changing talent in Hunter and didn’t stop until he got him.
Gladstone and head coach Liam Coen feel that Hunter has the power that will help the Jaguars on both sides of the field. Can Hunter help lift the franchise from the muck of the NFL into a contender? That’s what Gladstone is betting on.
“You know what, I don’t think it takes much to see that Travis has gravitational pull. He’s got a smile that will light up a room,” he said. “Yeah, there it is. Let it shine. It is certainly something that most everybody that I’ve come in contact with who’s experienced a session with Travis says very similar things.”
Hunter was the player worth making history for. He won the Heisman Trophy last year at Colorado, putting on the most prolific display of offense and defense in college football history. Hunter had 15 touchdown catches on 96 receptions as a receiver. On defense, Hunter had 36 tackles and picked off four passes.
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Moving to the NFL, Hunter doesn’t expect to change. He’s going to be himself.
“My job is to come out and be Travis Hunter. Come out and play how they envision me to play and exceed all the expectations,” he said.
Yes, Jacksonville sent out quite a bit to land Hunter, including a second-round pick this year and a first-round selection in 2026. In return, they landed the consensus best player in the entire draft and pushed their chips to the center of the table that they’re all in on busting the same old Jaguars narrative.
“So, the decision to select him was actually a statement, a statement for how we plan to move, who we are, and we want him to be nothing more than him because, when he is, he elevates the space around him,” Gladstone said. “From the football field to the city to the game of football itself, Travis Hunter is who we’ve been hunting up.”
The Jaguars expect to win and win now, otherwise they wouldn’t have shipped out a valuable first-round pick for next year. Jacksonville has been the league’s worst team under owner Shad Khan, with an average first-round pick coming in at No. 7.8 in his 14 years.
That bold move for Gladstone and Coen suggests that they’re not planning on drafting that high again. Coen said there’s a plan in place for how to use Hunter in the NFL
“Both Camp [defensive coordinator Anthony Campanile] and I and Grant [offensive coordinator Grant Udinski] are all on the same page about, hey, how is this thing going to work? What do we want this to look like,” Coen said. “We want it to look like what it looked like at Colorado, and that would be pretty good for us.”
In Jacksonville, elite national brand stars have been sparse.
Jalen Ramsey was the last player who the Jaguars drafted to develop into a national brand superstar. Quarterback Trevor Lawrence had generational prospect hype coming out of Clemson but has yet to parlay that into sustained NFL success.
In adding Hunter to the roster, the Jaguars have given Lawrence the best two pass-catchers of his career. Brian Thomas Jr., last year’s first-round pick, rewrote all the Jacksonville rookie receiving records. With Hunter and Thomas catching passes from Lawrence, and speedster Dyami Brown joining the team in free agency, Coen and Gladstone are betting that those additions help maximize their fifth-year passer.
“He will be big for me. He did a great job his rookie season. I’ve got a lot to improve on myself. So, I’m going to ask him a lot of questions,” Hunter said of Thomas. “He’ll probably get annoyed because I’m going to ask so many questions. I want to be the best. I want to be better than him. So, I’m going to try to soak up all the knowledge that he allows me to take from him.”
