How Long is The Leash For Travis Hunter? l MARTIN WEISS & ALEX MONACO

MARTIN WEISS & ALEX MONACO talk about how long the leash is for #travishunter

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show Otani took the mound today Also he went into the batters box but made history according to him at least Well for him at least his fastest pitch ever 102 miles per hour in two innings scoreless one hit one walk one strikeout for Otani the pitcher The pitcher The pitcher Otani the hitter looked like he was facing Otani the pitcher three strikeouts 0 for four on the day Now obviously it would be absurd ludicrous and ridiculous for me to come on the radio today and say “Alex Monaco
yep
cancel the experiment Show Otani look he can’t hit 0 for three and four I mean 0 for four He obviously can’t hit when he’s pitching.” I’m not doing that I’m not doing that because we’ve seen the proof of concept when he was in Anaheim We saw how that worked I am willing to give the the one of the best hitters that I have ever seen with my own two eyes a chance to let go ahead and give that runway to figure to get back into the groove of things as he admittedly is doing and saying that you know hey he said through an interpreter today not the uh the new one the new interpreter said I don’t think I’d be able to do it in a live batting practice setting it was nice to be able to hit this in a game right so him getting these game reps matters for him So okay he says he’s got to work through it in a game Do you agree
i agree inherently Again like you said what he did down the five freeway is goes without saying there in Anaheim He clearly wants to double dip The threeks over on a loss against KC doesn’t land great but you got to remind ourselves it’s 162 My question to you is Martin the pitching staff clearly a crowded room almost as crowded as the Browns depth chart at quarterback Is this as necessary in July as we approach it late June to get these reps in and maybe cost your team wins and losses like today 95 see no I Yeah I’m willing to sacrifice I don’t know what the number is but I’m willing to sacrifice a couple losses to see if I can get Sho Otani’s arm to a place where you know we’ve seen it throughout his career I’m worth if that throws off the rhythm for a couple I’m fine with that Especially too because I know the Dodgers pitching staff is you know generally the injury list is longer than the CVS receipt but you know we’ll see how so we’ll see how that all plays out But let’s say everybody is healthy then you’re telling me that I can get maybe a reliever coming out of the bullpen you know or like warming up Like I could the idea of having Otani be a pitcher doesn’t necessarily mean he has to just be a starting pitcher He could pitch a lot of different places like we’ve seen him have success in these one inning outings one two innings today So yeah I’m willing to experiment and you are as well So that’s what I thought That’s not a terribly ridiculous question but he did start today But here’s the one that I think is a close cousin of that question
Talk to me
But this guy doesn’t have the bonafides built up that show Otani does He doesn’t have what we saw in Anaheim but we did it in Boulder How long if in fact Travis Hunter
has the equivalent of two scoreless innings and 0 for four say Travis Hunter is what say he plays every snap offense and defense and you know only has three catches on six targets for 30 yards or something like that and like the other three were drops right but defensively he’s locking up everything right defensively Jamar Chase is in absolute hell hypothetically speaking right
all right All right
How long do you play Travis Hunter like how long how long are you going to run him out there for every single play
you know this goes almost a step back Martin to what kind of energy is the Jacksonville Jaguars post Douggee P bringing into the year are they desperate are they closer to abundance kind of tough off a four and 13 season to say they’re closer to abundance I’m still of the belief you roll him out on both sides If he’s one of one as this is about conditioning right to me I I think managing his mental is one piece of the puzzle the conditioning if it’s there and he can do it why not give him at least a month to see how it goes little Costco sample
So you say a month So about four games in that a month is four games But to your point I don’t think it’s just conditioning I think conditioning is a prerequisite But there has to be also the requisite ability and uh fundamentals establish like all of that has to be in play because like that’s and I’m not saying that he can’t do it I’m not saying that he won’t do it
Yeah I’m saying it’s going to be incredibly difficult and I think anybody who thinks this is going to be an easy and seamless transition I think that that you’re in for a rude awakening
So do you take today’s Otani line and sort of look at that could very much be what a Travis Hunter Sunday looks like
i think like this I think if show Otani had come out and gone there’s let’s extrapolate today out for you know uh a month Yeah Right And he ends up with he’s one for or you know two for 52 from the plate
right
over that stretch but he’s pitched you know 31 scoreless innings you know has given up you know with 17 strikeouts in a month Like I I think that I would be having some real conversations about this But that’s baseball though So maybe it’s just hey we’re gonna work on them to get better at this The difference between football is what happens when you now are you you just gave up a 75 yard touchdown and we want to run a bubble screen on the next play cuz we got to get you know
and you don’t want it to be the Brian Thomas You want it to be
and we want it to be to you right so it’s like how and obviously you you scheme around that You plan around that Well you’ll be the only team in the NFL having to do that It it does pose an interesting conundrum It seems like now the speed obviously the NFL isn’t even pales in comparison as you hear former players talk about it from college Do you feel like out the gate can you hypothesize one side of the field being more natural to him and then you kind of go from there because on defense if he’s a lock down cover corner and that’s what he is he’ll probably play more snaps than not On offense you do have the luxury with you know five wide receivers to inter intermingle them here and there and give them little bits of breaks but do you think there is maybe a serious problem here if there isn’t one side of the field being more strong than the other
well the the one the thing that makes me wonder the most is he is and he should he should feel this way He absolutely should But he is the of the utmost confidence that he was going to be able to do this without a problem without a doubt whatsoever I like all the every single quote he’s like “Dude there’s 24 hours in the day I sleep eight of them That’s 20 or was it uh 16 to figure out the rest of of football I’ll use eight for defense eight for offense right?” Like and you hear that type of attitude and and that’s exactly what you want to hear a similar attitude to what you hear of of Cooper flag when Jason kids in his introductory press conference say this kid would rather be not working out right now instead of being here talking to you jerks right so get that and I and I love that and that’s the attitude you have to have now the other thing is the Jaguars also seemingly have the exact same attitude towards him now the GM’s younger than me so it’s his first goround and this is his first pick and he made a big trade to go get him and he said after that quote first and foremost there when there’s an opportunity to be bold we’re not going to flinch And he says
“We’re adding people who are intangibly rich and Travis is in fact as a player rare.” He went on to say I’m trying to find the exact quote but he went on to say here we go there are players have capacity to alter a game There are players that have capacity to alter the trajectory of a team There are very few players who have the capacity to alter the trajectory of the sport itself
What a line for a first time GM who’s never won They’ve never played a snap in the league Right So that’s where we’re talking now I say I think it’s absolutely fair that at little league diamonds around America dads are saying “Well show Tiny does this Why can’t little Mikey?” Right like why can’t Mikey try it
i love it Now let me ask you this Do you think you’d feel more confident if he played in the SEC the Big 10 you’re a Michigan man Had he played against a non-Col schedule would we be looking at the painting a little differently
i wouldn’t have I don’t think so That’s a good question though And it’s not a good question because I don’t have like an answer like most people say That’s a good question when they’re like trying to think about it I just had never considered the fact had he played against quoteunquote better competition
because I just thought he dominated the competition he was playing against So
and he did But let me ask you this Martin because he was coached by Dion a guy that also is a Travis Hunter type athlete in his heyday Are we sitting here if we are playing the other side and not being optimistic are we feeling like this is a little bit of a sales pitch and the Jaguars took the bait and they’re going to end up with a product that couldn’t be nearly what he could be because he is pitching and hitting metaphorically as Otani did today and to your point off the top 0 for four threeks
So that’s my thing is like if we watch That’s they I wonder just how much of a conversation inside Jacksonville they’re having on the back end
right because like let’s say he like he gets to the league and has trouble making tackles just just making tackles
right
great point That’s a great thought And there’s not there are co there are corners Ian you probably got them off the top of your head but there are corners that go into the draft every single year that they say this guy has trouble tackling and then they go into the NFL and guess what they have trouble tackling Like I’m not saying that Travis Hunter is going to just necessarily have trouble but the idea that he is going to walk in and be A++ at both receiver and cornerback is one that is very hard for me to agree to see Now it could happen two three years from now All right I’m willing to accept that but how long of a runway do you give him
and to add to that and throw it to you I’m looking at the first five weeks of the season Momes the ners CJ Strad and the boys out of Houston They got the Bengals looking to prove to everyone in the whole world Let’s say they start out one and three one and four This is not the Dodgers This is the exact opposite a a low self-esteem non-winning franchise that’s tried to reshuffle a number of ways Do you have a shorter leash when you roll out Hunter on both sides of the depth chart if you’re losing out the gate
look man the plan they say in Jacksonville is to learn primarily focus on offense while learning defense throughout the off season That’s also the way I would have approached it I also think with a kid like this you have to give him the opportunity
right you have to give him the chance I think he has earned this may come out wrong He has earned the right to fail right which is how long of a lease does he get you just talked about he’s going up against what that’s three AFC Pro Bowlers
in the first four games
between Burrow Mahomes and and you said uh uh Josh Allen
No they got the Texans
Okay CJ Strad
they got Burrow They got Mahomes And in between two AFC playoff teams they go to San Francisco And however you feel about Brock Perie I know this is true about Kyle Shanahan If you have a weak link on your defense it will be a long day for that player
You guys need to also remember the Jaguars are actually pretty good at receiver outside of Travis Hunter I mean Brian Thomas Jr comes to mind I know they they just signed someone too They have a pretty good
Christian Kirk
Christian Kirk I
No Christian Kirk is a Texan now Yeah I that’s terrible radio right now to not have that off the top of my head But the point is their receiving core is pretty good outside of Hunter So do you guys agree with them starting him on offense it almost seems like they need him a little more in the secondary No but I think it’s good thought to the point is if they’re going to start him on offense and then work him into the defense then I’m thinking that where you’re looking is more so you have so much more control over who plays on offense than you do on defense You have so much more control over your substitution patterns You have so much more control over who’s going to be involved in the action on offense Also you’re not throwing him you know facing off against Pat Certan in week one versus you know guarding Jamar Chase and stuff like you know the the other team’s best corner is going to be on Brian Thomas to start the year
Well I’m looking at it boys Bottom 10 passing offense last year and I’m looking at their pass defense and their pass defense was worse in the NFL They gave up 257 The worst in the NFL
No one is making the claim that this was a good team last year No I mean does it is it the perfect storm for the worst thing to happen though this feels I don’t you know we’re ’90s kids I don’t want to get a little maddened with it This is a little video game fringe Like can we put this guy all over the field
this is exact This is video game fringe stuff That’s why it’s like we’ll see if it works Like I’m not counting it out all together But I will say this Uh I also am not taking or placing any bets on Travis Hunter offensive or defensive rookie of the year How about o how about overs or unders
give I’ll take all undersight thought It’s worth the thought
Sight unseen Like I’m just you gota Hey if I if that if I lose those bets I tip my cap to you Travis That’s my cap to