Why the Packers Are Being Patient With Tyler Davis

It certainly wouldn’t be surprising to see Tyler Davis get cut when the Packers make their final roster reduction next week. What we’ve gotten a chance to see from him this summer hasn’t been great; he had a drop that led to an interception in the Packers’ first preseason game and committed a costly holding penalty and fumbled away a possession in the second. That’s the sort of performance that will get the chattering class, well, chattering for your release.

But the Packers have been steadfast in their support of Davis, and that support makes sense from a certain point of view. Even if you’d still like Davis run out of town on a rail, I’d invite you to consider three reasons why the Packers might still be standing behind him.

1 - The Packers are evaluating Davis primarily as a special teams player

As of today, Davis is solidly the fourth tight end on the Packers’ depth chart. Robert Tonyan and Marcedes Lewis share the primary tight end duties, while Josiah Deguara fills in for both while occupying his own role as a quasi-fullback. That leaves Davis to pick up the scraps and play a boatload of special teams snaps.

That’s how he was used in 2021, logging 15 or more snaps on special teams over the Packers’ final eight regular season games and their playoff game. For comparison, he hit the same threshold in just five of their final nine games on offense. He does have some offensive upside, and it’s no small part of his appeal. But it’s not his primary use case right now. Evaluating him solely on his (admittedly very bad) offensive performance is missing a big part of the Packers’ plans for him.

2 - Davis is still very much a work in progress as a player

Several members of the Packers’ beat have made a lot of hay on Davis’ background as a converted college quarterback. Robert Tonyan also walked that path, so it’s easy to see why people would want to draw that comparison.

In Davis’ case, I have a hard time really buying the “he’s new to the position” line of thinking. He didn’t really ever play quarterback in college; he made the switch during his redshirt freshman season, and by his sophomore year he was fully ensconced in the world of blocking and catching passes as opposed to throwing them. He played three full seasons as a college tight end — that’s more than enough time to settle in.

However, that doesn’t mean expectations should be high. Tight ends can take a while to blossom in the NFL. Heck, just look at Tonyan. He first signed with the Packers in 2017 — one of the late, great Ted Thompson’s final moves was claiming Tonyan on waivers — but he didn’t break out as a player until 2020 during his age 26 season. Davis just turned 25 this summer; he’s only in his third NFL season. While it’s fair to want more from him than what he’s shown this preseason, he’s still in the growth phase of his NFL career. 

On top of that, he’s still a lump of clay worth shaping. He’s a great size/speed prospect, and that’s not inconsiderable in a game where size and speed are pretty much the whole deal. It’s true that there may be better prospects elsewhere in the NFL, but as far as the Packers are concerned, only Alize Mack offers comparable athletic upside. That shouldn’t be discounted.

3 - We’re only seeing part of the picture

Finally, it’s once again absolutely true and worth pointing out that Davis has been bad in the Packers’ two preseason games. He simply has; to argue otherwise is silly. 

But the Packers get to see much more of him than we do. They’re evaluating him on a truly day-in, day-out basis that we can’t match. If their opinion of him is higher, we should at least pause and ask ourselves why that might be. Preseason games do matter; they’re the closest approximation of real, competitive football we’ve got. But they’re only a part of the evaluation process, and we should keep that in mind when forming opinions about players.

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