Tyler Davis Could Be the Packers' Next Gem at Tight End
Tight end Tyler Davis is a relative newcomer in Green Bay, but he’ll have the chance to play a bigger role moving forward.
For all his talk about valuing tight ends, Mike McCarthy had a pretty limited view of what the position could achieve. Typically, McCarthy-era Packers tight ends played a very traditional role, lining up tight to the formation or serving as big slot receivers. That’s by no means a negative; by and large, I’d guess that’s what most of the league is doing with their tight ends. But it’s amazingly limited to what the Packers have done with their tight ends in the Matt LaFleur era.
Under LaFleur, the Packers have carved out a few distinct roles for their ends. There’s the extremely traditional “Y” tight end as played by Marcedes Lewis, which usually involves Lewis with his hand on the ground on the strong side of the formation. There’s the more modern “move” tight end, a role which Robert Tonyan filled with aplomb, detaching from the formation to line up as a big slot receiver or even out wide. And then there’s the “F” tight end, a fullback/H-back mix popularized by the Mike Shanahan tree of the West Coast offense. That’s the job typically filled by Josiah Deguara or Dominique Dafney.
With so many roles to be filled, the Packers have had to pretty consistently churn their practice squad and low roster spots to keep a fresh stable of tight ends available for the many machinations of LaFleur’s tight end wizardry. And that’s what brings us to Tyler Davis, an early-season addition who has risen to something resembling prominence as the year has worn on.
Who is Tyler Davis?
A 6-4, 252-pound prospect, Davis projects primarily as a backup for Lewis, but he brings athleticism to the role that Lewis can’t match at his age. Davis moves well at his size and has already shown the ability to stretch the middle of the field when given the chance, as he did on this 22-yard gain in Week 15.
He’s also a willing and able blocker, grading out at a 67.7 over the course of the 2021 season according to Pro Football Focus. That’s not quite as good as Lewis’ 72.8 grade (not that anybody expects Davis to match Lewis), but it’s significantly better than the 47 posted by Robert Tonyan in the eight games he played prior to his knee injury.
How did Tyler Davis end up in Green Bay?
So how did the Packers happen across a guy who can run, catch, and block? Why didn’t anybody else want him? Two reasons.
First, although he tested well in the pre-draft process, scouts didn’t have much to go on as far as Davis’ college career. Playing at lightly regarded Connecticut for his first three seasons, Davis managed 47 catches for 500 yards and seven touchdowns. Solid numbers, to be sure, but hardly eye-popping. Then, as a graduate transfer, Davis recorded just 17 catches for 148 yards and a score. Taken as a whole, it’s easy to see why a good but not great athlete who didn’t put up noteworthy numbers in college lasted until the sixth round of the 2019 NFL Draft.
But someone did draft Davis, and that brings us to the second reason Davis is a member of the Green Bay Packers: the Jacksonville Jaguars. Jacksonville selected Davis with the 206th pick in the 2020 NFL Draft, played him in eight games in 2020, then released him in the final round of cuts this season. After a brief stay in Indianapolis, the Packers signed him, and he’s been a mainstay on special teams since, gradually increasing his role on offense along the way.
Here’s an added twist: Davis lost out on some training camp reps over the summer to another notable former member of the Jaguars: Tim Tebow. For reasons that are still not clear, former Jaguars head coach Urban Meyer attempted to convert Tebow to tight end and devoted valuable training camp reps to doing so, potentially taking time away from players like Davis who could have been actually useful to the Jaguars this season. The Jaguars, once again, seem to have failed to realize what they had.
If that sounds like a familiar story, it should. Davis is walking the path established by Allen Lazard, himself a former Jaguar with a diverse skillset who found a home in Green Bay. And if Lazard is any indication, Davis is well on his way to becoming a big contributor for the Packers.