Once a top QB recruit, Travis Jonsen hopes to add to Buccaneers receiver depth -

Travis Jonsen has a Super Bowl ring at age 24, with real promise and potential as he battles for a roster spot on the defending champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Whatever his odds are this month, he knows that four years ago, his future was much less certain.

Jonsen had gone from one of the nation’s top quarterback recruits to not playing in two years at Oregon to being the backup at Riverside City College in California. Before he humbly landed at Montana State and switched positions to wide receiver, he wasn’t sure about playing football at all.

“I think everything happens for a reason. I wouldn’t change my journey for anything,” he said Sunday. “Personally, I think if none of that happened, I wouldn’t be here today. It made me stronger, made me more confident. I just kept my head down and started working.”

Jonsen, 6-foot-4 and 215 pounds, has a difficult task ahead, making his case to stick with a Super Bowl team that returns every starter and has perhaps the best receiving corps in the NFL. The top three receivers are elite Pro Bowl talents, and the next three are recent draft picks turning heads as well, leaving Jonsen to convince the Bucs they should carry a seventh on the 53-man roster.

“As a whole, he probably grew the most out of any wideout last year,” Bucs receivers coach Kevin Garver said. “You really saw it. I know he wasn’t getting a lot of reps, but he was working his craft on the scout team, going against our starting DBs every day. He really started to shine, just being consistent and making plays … I think he really has a chance.”

Super Bowl champions!!!! @TomBrady pic.twitter.com/WeqdnvjIVs

— Travis Jonsen (@travisjonsen) February 8, 2021

Rewind six years to Anaheim’s Servite High School (Calif.). Jonsen was a heralded recruit, rated by 247 as the nation’s No. 4 dual-threat quarterback. That was two spots below a future No. 1 NFL Draft pick in Kyler Murray, three spots higher than another future No. 1 in Joe Burrow, and also just ahead of a top-three draft pick in Sam Darnold and a league MVP in Lamar Jackson.

“Charisma. Intelligence. Athleticism. Toughness,” the Los Angeles Times wrote about him as a high school junior. “If a coach needs a teenager to lead on and off the field, (he) is the ideal candidate.”

Jonsen was a national recruit, in the same high school backfield with Equanimeous St. Brown, who would go to Notre Dame and is entering his fourth season as a receiver with the Green Bay Packers.

“We played on the same Pop Warner team for a few years, and we had a one-two punch going,” St. Brown said. “He’d hand me the ball and sometimes he’d keep it. We were pretty good then, and my sophomore year, I transferred to his high school and we finished our days out there. He could always run well and move well.”

The two remain friends, and even after the Bucs eliminated the Packers in last season’s NFC Championship Game, they trained together again this offseason, with Jonsen even staying at St. Brown’s house for a month.

“He’s one of those genetically gifted kids — there’s not too many guys that play quarterback their whole lives, then switch to receiver and play in the NFL,” St. Brown said. “He’s a freak athlete and he works hard at it, and it’s paying off.”

Jonsen arrived at Oregon in spring 2015 — Marcus Mariota had just finished his career and would be the No. 2 pick in that year’s draft. Jonsen threw a touchdown pass in the Ducks’ spring game but missed that first year due to surgery for turf toe. That next spring, he threw for 188 yards and a touchdown, but the fall brought the arrival of Eugene’s own Justin Herbert, who would become a four-year starter and is now the Chargers’ starting quarterback.

“Quarterback’s a very hard position,” Jonsen said of why playing the position at Oregon didn’t work out for him. “It’s hard to tell what happened in those three years. It’s still an unanswered question for me. I really don’t have a definite answer for that one.”

Jonsen sought to transfer in the summer of 2017, but he hadn’t played in two years. Rather than sit out another year, he went closer to home at Riverside and was still a backup there, stuck between positions. He landed at Montana State, where he was used creatively, not only as a wildcat quarterback but as a receiver.

“He had a lot of really good intangibles: his high football IQ, his athleticism, his leadership. That opens up a lot of windows,” said Jeff Choate, his head coach at Montana State and now co-defensive coordinator at Texas. “We were able to come up with packages that highlighted his athleticism.”

Choate remembers seeing Jonsen’s smarts in one game, even as a part-time quarterback, recognizing that the game clock was running down and audibling to kill a pre-snap motion to avoid a penalty on a crucial down.

“We never even talked to him about that, but because he played the position at a high level, he had that good FBI,” said Choate, referencing the shorthand for “football intelligence.”

The confidence to trust him as a full-time receiver came in the final game of his first year with the Bobcats, as they faced rival Montana and trailed 22-0 just before halftime. Choate started calling more plays to Jonsen — on one fourth-quarter drive, he had three catches, including a 45-yarder, to set up a touchdown that pulled them within three points. He finished with 11 catches for 101 yards, and Montana State pulled out a 29-25 win.

In his final year, he did a little of everything. He caught 55 passes for 580 yards, rushed for 549 yards and eight touchdowns and threw for another score as well. He signed with the Buccaneers as an undrafted rookie last year but was waived with an injury settlement a few weeks into training camp.

Jonsen got healthy again, was signed to the Bucs’ practice squad in October and made a strong impression there. He learned from the team’s top trio of Mike Evans, Chris Godwin and Antonio Brown, picking up what each does best while still learning the nuances of playing the position.

“Just learning from Mike, AB, Chris Godwin, Tyler Johnson, the whole receiver room. Just studying them and seeing them play, watching them, I’ve learned a lot,” he said. “I’ve tried to implement some of the things they’re good at and apply it to my game, to constantly work every week to get better and better.”

In the playoffs, as the Bucs prepared to face the Saints and Packers, he simulated quarterback Taysom Hill and receiver Davante Adams in back-to-back weeks, his versatility helping the defense prepare for two difficult opponents.

Here’s Bucs practice-squad receiver Travis Jonsen with President Biden after today’s White House ceremonies. @travisjonsen pic.twitter.com/D5renmN0XL

— Greg Auman (@gregauman) July 20, 2021

When Tampa Bay general manager Jason Licht was asked this spring about players who weren’t on the 53 last season who would have a chance to make the team this fall, he started his response with Jonsen.

“One that stands out is Travis Jonsen,” he said. “He did a great job this year for us. He was kind of a hybrid quarterback/receiver in college, and this year, he was honing his craft as a receiver and he got better and better every day. He’s one guy that potentially is a special-teams guy, a fourth/fifth/sixth receiver. I don’t know, Bruce may want to keep eight receivers this year. He’s a guy we’re looking forward to watching here and developing further.”

The Bucs carried seven receivers for much of last season, in part because backup Justin Watson, now sidelined for four months after knee surgery, was a mainstay on special teams.

Choate said Jonsen’s willingness — even eagerness — to play special teams was a huge asset with his size and speed, calling him “the best special-teams player in the Big Sky Conference” his senior year. Nobody could block him as a gunner, and while the challenge is greater in the NFL, that is Jonsen’s easiest path to showing enough value to stay on the 53-man roster.

“I like special teams a lot, and coach Choate emphasized that at Montana State, having starters be on special teams,” he said. “For this team, I just want to help out in whatever way possible. I would not complain if I’m doing special teams.”

Jonsen will have a chance to prove himself as a receiver in the preseason, but it’s almost as important that he makes the most of his special-teams reps, establishing himself as a core player there.

“He’s big, strong and he can be a wing, he can do a lot of things on special teams as a big-body guy, like a fast tight end,” Arians said. “Carve that niche out. He’s catching the ball. He got wide open that first week, (but) he dropped a lot of balls. I think it was just nerves because he’s got good hands. He’s catching the ball better. He’s one of those guys that’s fighting for that spot to get on the 53 or stay on the practice squad.”

If you’re looking for an example of a converted quarterback finding success at another position in the NFL, there’s a good precedent in Logan Thomas. Thomas played quarterback at Virginia Tech and was a fourth-round pick in 2014 in Arizona when Arians coached there, going 1 for 9 as a rookie in his only NFL experience at the position. It took years and multiple teams, but Thomas found himself as a tight end last year, catching six touchdowns among 72 receptions in a breakout year with Washington, earning him a three-year, $24 million contract at age 30.

Jonsen navigated multiple positions and multiple schools in college, and he even changed his name. He was born Travis Waller but legally had his name changed after high school to Jonsen, his mother’s maiden name. He’s still trying to make a name for himself in Tampa, with Tyler Johnson already at receiver and another TJ there in rookie T.J. Simmons. He said some will call him “Yonsen” to help differentiate when they’re in a group together.

Choate remembers a moment at the senior banquet after the 2019 season, when Montana State was a playoff team and had beaten rival Montana four straight years. Jonsen lingered a bit afterward, taking time to thank his coach for rekindling his love of the game after a trying first three years of college.

“He got a little emotional,” Choate said. “He said, ‘I almost gave up playing football. I lost my love of the game.’ He bounced out of Oregon, went to Riverside, they tell him the same thing we told him here: Go to receiver or you’re not going to have a spot here. We found a niche for him, and it was really cool to see him find that love of the game again.”

Jonsen said rekindling that, keeping him on a football path, was “the best thing coach Choate ever did for me.”

In Tampa, Jonsen is part of one of the deepest and most talented receiving groups in the NFL. He’s making plays in practice and will have a chance to do so in preseason games, but Garver said it starts in meeting rooms, in the way he takes notes, listens, asks questions.

“He’s got great size. He can run well for his size, can catch the ball pretty consistently,” he said. “There’s still a little bit of a learning curve for him because he hasn’t played wideout that much. He’s learning a lot on the fly, every rep. He’s improving and will continue to improve. He’s a sharp kid, and I think the sky’s the limit for him.”

(Photo: Julio Aguilar / Getty Images)

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