Corey Davis - is this it, will it get better?

[jman3134]

^Wow, really insightful post!

[Crazylegs]

^Wow, really insightful post!

Agreed

[Bot101]

I wonder if this makes Taylor even rosterable on my 22 player team?

[Crwdstunna]

If you are a Davis owner like me you are certainly concerned a bit. I think a lot of it has to do with the offense and Mariota this year. His injuries haven't helped. With that said, Corey has shown enough flashes to this point for me to still think he can be a top 15 WR for fantasy purposes going forward. Gotta remember, he is a rookie. Give it time.

[jman3134]

^StableofRBs post says little about how he will develop as a player. It speaks more to the limited opportunity he will have regardless of his development, which is extremely important.

[IR1]

waiting- injury slowed development and rapport with Mariota

[Friction]

I agree with a lot of the above. I really wanted Corey to enter the draft last year when I lot of people had Coleman, Doctson, and Treadwell ahead of him. I still like Davis, but he was more towards the 1.04 to 1.06 range this year for me (unless I really needed WR help) and once I saw him discussed as the 1.01 or 1.02 many places, I knew there was little chance I would get him without a trade, based off my draft slots and wanting to stick to my BPA/draft board. I still think he will be good in real football and a good to great fantasy asset, but Tennessee will have to change their offensive philosophy somewhat or really pepper him with targets to get him into the fantasy WR1 range. Maybe when Delanie moves on it will move more targets to their WR1 and Jonnu/whoever is not utilized quite as much.

[GridironGuerilla]

^Wow, really insightful post!

Don't rub his ego. I have to play in leagues with him. Lol.

[osubuckeyeman]

Not concerned a bit. Titans drafted him 7th overall for a reason and he has to develop a bit. Not all rookies come out the gate like barn busters. He has flashed some of his skills and the injuries most likely slowed his development. He still seems to be a special prospect in my eyes and looking forward to his breakout.

[Goddard]

I'm not really sure the Titans have had a good enough WR in recent years to be a WR1. And yes, they'll probably remain a run-first team, but the NFL is changing and even "run-first" teams are throwing the ball more. They also don't have to throw the ball 40 times for Davis to put up WR1 numbers. As long as he becomes the main receiving option, I don't see why he can't get close to 8-10 targets per game and have good numbers.

[steelman]

Either the Titans will have a top notch defence in the years to come, or they're going to have to throw the ball more if they ever want to contend because that's the nature of the league these days. I'm sure the GM and coaches are well aware of that. Their running game isn't really getting them anywhere and that's not going to change. They drafted Davis for a reason, and I doubt that reason is not only use him in a limited fashion.

I would think they drafted him to help improve their passing game.

[CK_]

I think we can all agree that Walker has been the best Receiver on that team since Mariota's inception into the NFL right? He has seemed to have targeted Davis when on field and can't see why he won't easily post WR2 numbers sometime soonish in 2018. This is his rookie season guys let's not over do ourselves with worry. If it was his 3rd year then I get it.

[Kramer]

Not concerned a bit. Titans drafted him 7th overall for a reason and he has to develop a bit. Not all rookies come out the gate like barn busters. He has flashed some of his skills and the injuries most likely slowed his development. He still seems to be a special prospect in my eyes and looking forward to his breakout.

They drafted him 5th overall.

I wouldn't worry too much about Davis. He's flashed some pretty nice catches so far this year. Mariota is having a bad year as well. Not sure how much injuries are affecting Mariota, but I don't believe he has been throwing deep much this year. Davis also hasn't had a chance to build rapport with Mariota. He was the 5th overall pick. Be patient. Trust the process.

[Vcize]

The main thing that I think will hold Davis back is volume, the Titans are still very much a run-first team, as evidenced by the fact that Mariota has averaged ~31 pass attempts per game over each of his first two seasons. It's possible they could change their gameplan up in the future but I'm skeptical because of how much they've invested in their OL and their RB situation so Mariota will generally be throwing out ~480 attempts a season, assuming of course that they have a reason to play him in week 17 (which most leagues don't count anyway) so the 450 he had last year is probably a safer bet

Now we can take a look at Rishard Matthews who was his number 1 WR last year who was targeted on 95 of Mariota's 450 attempts which is just over a 21% target share (most WR1s on teams average about 20-22%), now obviously this will go down this year with Davis in the mix and I am by no means saying that Matthews is as talented as Davis is but Matthews didn't go anywhere, he is still a viable receiver on the team who will pull targets from Davis along with Delanie Walker (94 targets), Tajae Sharpe (81 targets), the RBs (80 combined targets)

Davis is clearly the most talented receiver on the team, no question, but odds are he won't end up with more than a 20-22% target share which, given Mariota's 2 previous seasons, will equate to roughly 100 targets, assuming he catches 65% of them (a good catch rate for any receiver) that's 65 receptions (duh) which would mean he would need at least 15.5 yards per catch to hit 1000 yards on the season and 1 TD every 8 catches to hit 8 touchdowns

The TDs would certainly be doable especially given his size and talent (although rushing TD vultures near the end zone are a bigger possibility with a running QB and two solid backs) but keeping up that YPC average is tough over a full season. Mike Evans, OBJ, Antonio Brown and Amari Cooper didn't even average 14.0 YPC let alone 15.0 or 15.5 (Cooper was closest with 13.9) and even Rishard Matthews only hit 14.5 YPC, so for Davis to do it as a rookie in such a low volume passing attack with capable albeit less talented receivers in Walker and Matthews around him is incredibly unlikely no matter how talented he is.

From a Davis thread over the summer and just like clockwork Mariota is averaging 30.6 pass attempts per game so far this year. Another thing to consider with low volume passing offenses is volatility, the lower the volume a receiver gets the more likely any small change in play from either the WR or QB will effect their fantasy totals so consistency takes a huge blow there as well.

All of that may be true if you were expecting rookie production out of Davis, but for the long-term if Mariota is really a good QB these are all things that will change. See: Wilson, Russell and Roethlisberger, Ben, both of whom were just low volume game managers with good run games and defenses until those things started to falter. Then they were asked to do more.

[DJB]

Davis was injured all offaeason and all during ota and camp. Mix in Mariota injury and im surprised they have done as well as they have so far.

I expect growth next season.