Should You Draft Jameson Williams or Travis Hunter in 2025?

Welcome to another edition of Fantasy Faceoff.

This weekly series pits two players at the same position with similar draft costs per current ADP against each other, outlining the cases for and against each, and ultimately landing on a final verdict of who’s the better pick.

Our subjects this time are Jacksonville Jaguars rookie Travis Hunter (ADP WR27) and Jameson Williams of the Detroit Lions (ADP 25).

(All stats per our NFL StatsHub unless otherwise noted)

Travis Hunter, WR/CB, Jacksonville Jaguars

The Case for Hunter

It’s vital to begin by communicating that Travis Hunter is the most talented prospect I’ve ever seen. What he achieved playing as a full-time wide receiver and cornerback at the University of Colorado is unprecedented in the modern era of college football.

In addition to his stellar defensive efforts, Hunter finished in the top five in the NCAA in receptions (96), receiving yards (1,258) and receiving touchdowns (15) as a junior in 2024, per Sports Reference. He was so good last year, in fact, that he’s the only player in NCAA history to win both the Fred Biletnikoff Award (nation’s top receiver) and the Chuck Bednarik Award (nation’s top defensive player) in the same season.

Between his quick twitch, incredible body control in the air and the fact he’s the most instinctual player on the field at all times, Hunter’s knack for big plays on either side of the ball is uncanny — the dude straight up knows ball.

As for the team situation Hunter’s walking into, it’s a fairly solid one. Jacksonville has plenty of reasons to be excited following the team’s offseason hiring of Liam Coen as their head coach.

An apple off the Sean McVay tree, Coen served as the Los Angeles Rams’ offensive coordinator in 2022 and worked in the same position with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers last season. To give an idea of what his handiwork has accomplished, the Bucs finished 2024 with the fifth-highest passing offense DVOA and ranked fifth in passing offense EPA overall under Coen’s tutelage. Pretty sharp results!

Beyond the new coach, there’s also likely an immediate role for Hunter following the departure of tight end Evan Engram Don’t read this as falling into the “vacated targets” fallacy, but at least consider that Engram accounted for a 15.7% target share in 2022, a 21.6% share in 2023, and a 22.9% target share across the abbreviated nine games he played last season due to a hamstring injury and a torn labrum.

The point is that there’s a significant void to be filled in the Jaguars’ offense, which is probably why the team felt so comfortable trading up to the second overall pick of the 2025 NFL Draft to select Hunter. Beyond one teammate we’ll talk about shortly, there’s practically no one on the roster to stop Hunter from filling that void immediately.

So, assuming Hunter’s game translates, why wouldn’t this work out for fantasy managers?

The Case Against Hunter

Despite being a uniquely rare athlete, there are a handful of complicating factors at play that could limit Hunter’s fantasy ceiling.

First, he’s been adamant about his desire to play both offense and defense in the NFL. The unprecedented nature of that begs the question of how the Jaguars will choose to divvy up his playing time, if at all. Would the team limit his routes at receiver to accommodate playing on defense? Are we looking at a 90% route participation? 80%? 75%?

We genuinely don’t know at this point. For what it’s worth, I watched his introductory press conference and did as much reading on quotes from Jaguars personnel on the subject of Hunter as I could. To the best of my knowledge, it seems like he’s going to be an offensive player first and then work into sub-packages on defense over time.

Don’t get too hung up on all of this, but choosing to completely ignore the risk of that “part-time” role at corner does seem like it would be a bit misguided. There’s also the looming question surrounding who the primary focus of the Jaguars’ aerial attack will be.

We won’t dig too deep into Brian Thomas Jr. here, but any dedicated fantasy managers who participated in leagues last year know how good he was as a rookie out of LSU. Assuming Thomas is the “alpha,” then Hunter being the second fiddle is an objective mark against him.

Though retrofitting a different team situation onto another is somewhat arbitrary, we can glean some context for what to expect from Thomas and Hunter by analyzing the target distribution between Chris Godwin and Mike Evans in Tampa Bay last season.

In the seven games they played together before Godwin sustained a season-ending ankle injury, each wideout posted good volume, with Evans registering a 17.7% target share with 6.4 targets per game, and Godwin with a 24.4% share and 8.9 targets per game. That framework does highlight a stark difference between the primary and secondary role(s).

Lastly, I’m mindful not to phrase this factor as a “problem,” but it’s not unfair to say that Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence hasn’t lived up to the expectations of being the first overall pick in the 2021 NFL Draft to date.

Placing all of the blame squarely on Lawrence would be unjust. He started his career with the dreadful one-year stint of Urban Meyer, which may have been the worst coaching job in NFL history, and it’s not as though the Doug Pederson/Press Taylor regime doesn’t shoulder responsibility for the team’s woes over the past three seasons.

Still, he’s yet to throw for more than 25 touchdowns and has barely averaged over 250 yards per game just once so far in his career. Additionally, there have been 37 quarterbacks (including Lawrence) to start at least 25 games since 2021, per Stathead. Here’s how he ranks compared to his peers in a few key statistical categories in that span:

• 29th in passer rating (85.0)
• 31st in on-target throw rate (73.8%)
• 31st in touchdown rate (3.4%)

Perhaps Coen is exactly what Lawrence needs. Fantasy managers should be open to that, but there is enough of a realistic chance that Lawrence doesn’t ascend much beyond what he’s shown in his career thus far to be somewhat worried.

Jameson Williams, WR, Detroit Lions

The Case for Williams

Williams has gotten off to a slow start in the NFL. Between a torn ACL that cost him his rookie season and a few other items we’ll touch on later, we don’t have a lot of professional production to speak of from this speedster.

So we’ll start by establishing some context here by mentioning his collegiate accomplishments. Williams finished his junior season at Alabama in 2021 by leading the SEC in receiving yards (1,572) and receiving touchdowns (15) and being named a first-team All-American. Those aren’t easy feats to pull off and make for a strong pedigree, hence the Lions using the 12th overall pick of the 2022 NFL Draft on him.

Jumping to the present, we finally saw a true “breakout stretch” from Williams at the end of 2024. From Week 10 on, he posted averages of 6.8 targets, 4.6 catches and 65.6 receiving yards per game. In fantasy terms, the 14.1 PPR points per game Williams put up in that span ranked 24th among wideouts.

This may not seem like a lot, but these are the first consistent signs of production that fantasy managers have seen from him.

It’s also essential to note Williams’ evolution as a player. He had primarily been a downfield one-trick pony over his first two NFL seasons, but Williams has shown significant growth toward becoming a more well-rounded player year over year.

By examining a few deeper metrics from the StatsHub, you’ll notice Williams beginning to see looks closer to the line of scrimmage more often, that he’s not being thrown to deep downfield as frequently, and his overall involvement in the Lions offense has been increasing:

Granted, these measures are neither definitive nor directly correlated with one another, but hopefully this perspective has been illustrated adequately. Fantasy managers want players who rack up more volume and see fewer volatile targets, which is something Williams is continuing to accomplish.

We might be looking at an absolute fantasy stud if he puts it all together over a full stretch of games.

The Case Against Williams

The major forces that could work against Williams are tricky to express, but we’ll do our best.

Fantasy managers might see a potential downtick in production from the Lions’ offense following the loss of prolific playcaller Ben Johnson, now the head coach of the Chicago Bears. Not to oversell his influence, but just know that the Lions finished no lower than seventh in the league in team offensive DVOA across Johnson’s three seasons between 2022 and 2024.

The good news is that the team’s new offensive coordinator, John Morton, has prior NFL experience (2017 with the New York Jets) and was previously an assistant on this staff under head coach Dan Campbell in 2022. Most recently, as the Denver Broncos’ passing game coordinator between 2023-24 under Sean Payton. It’s a strong replacement on paper, although we can’t assume that means the Lions’ offense won’t flop without Johnson.

For this final point, I’m careful to remind readers that I don’t know Jameson Williams personally and won’t ever claim to. This mere presentation of fact isn’t meant to be a sort of character assassination or an attempt to paint him in a negative light. That established, the ACL injury that delayed the start of his career is not the only thing that’s hindered his development. Williams has been in trouble with the NFL on two occasions, which slowed down his progression of his own volition:

• Violating the NFL’s policy against gambling after betting on a college football game in 2023 (a six-game suspension later reduced to four).
• Violating the NFL’s rules on using performance-enhancing drugs in 2024 (a two-game suspension).

Do with that information what you will. The front office and coaching staff in Detroit certainly know a lot more about Williams’ behavior and actions than we do. If nothing else, we can characterize these incidents as mildly concerning.

The Verdict: Travis Hunter

Neither player is someone fantasy managers have seen “put it all together,” but between the two, I’d rather bet on the football equivalent of Shohei Ohtani.

Making that comparison is imperfect for many reasons, but it’s accurate enough for all intents and purposes. That assertion might come across as a goofy reason to ultimately select a player, given everything outlined. However, I don’t regret that explanation.

As a quick bonus, we didn’t even have time to get into the fact that wideout Amon-Ra St. Brown and tight end Sam LaPorta make up for a large amount of the concentrated passing volume in the Lions offense. That’s two other players to worry about for competition versus Hunter’s one.

Ultimately, when in doubt, bet on the unicorn.