Gabriel Davis: Gas or Brakes?

If Gabriel Davis wasn’t on your radar before last weekend, he sure is now. After his explosive performance in the AFC Divisional Round loss to the Chiefs, a football game that some are calling the best ever played, there has been no shortage of speculation and debate about this soon-to-be third-year WR from the University of Central Florida. What do I think of Davis going forward?

I am a big fan and have been on board ever since his rookie pre-season, where I drafted him in the fourth round or later in my rookie drafts. I acquired several cheap shares after his rookie year, paying no more than 2.10 for him in one deal. But that was before Buffalo went out and acquired Emmanuel Sanders (WR – BUF). I also grabbed Davis off waivers just recently during the 2021 season.

Let’s start at the beginning and work up to his giant 8/201/4 game. What did he look like as a prospect drafted in the fourth round of the 2020 NFL Draft as the 128th pick and 16th WR off the board? I would point out that the 15th WR, Devin Duvernay (WR – BAL) went in the third round at 92nd overall, a full 36 picks earlier, suggesting the NFL thought there was a clear and defined tier break at WR in that area of the draft. If true, that means Davis was at the very top of that next tier. Rose-colored glasses.

Our very own Chris Miles has been doing some great work on rookie scouting, using easy-to-understand and actionable metrics to produce a profile snapshot of a given prospect. Here is a great example and a link to the thresholds:

Ok, so there are some pretty good college metrics on Davis coming out. Before we get into what he has done in the NFL in his first two seasons, let’s take a quick look at this blurb from Smokey John Brown during the rookie’s pre-season, former Bills wide receiver who played with Davis that year. He is also talking about Isaiah Hodgins here:

One of the key indicators I look for in a rookie after they have been drafted is to see whether there is a steady drumbeat in the off-season in terms of them flashing, catching the eye of beat writers, teammates, coaches, etc. Those things are always to be taken with a grain of salt, but they’re exactly the kind of nuggets you want to hear about. However, it was always going to be harder to gauge such news during the 2020 Covid off-season, where practices and media access were incredibly limited. Davis showed up ready to play and knew the playbook, earned targets and snaps in his rookie season as a Day 3 pick on one of the league’s most explosive offenses, and indeed flashed during his first season at age 21. 

He has now caught 18 TDs before the age of 23 in the NFL as a less than full-time player due to the presence of Sanders, Cole Beasley, and obviously Stefon Diggs. To those who have questioned the Bills’ faith in Davis because they went out and got Sanders, I’d say that is absurd. They knew they needed as many weapons as they could get; the Bills brass is linked to stories about chasing Sanders for years, and Davis was good but not great so let’s not pretend they weren’t going to go get more receivers. He was only 21 and it is ok to say that he needed to develop more. That is likely still true and let’s not make the mistake of thinking that he is a finished product.

To compete with Kansas City? Yeah, I would think that made sense to bring in Sanders. And you know what? They’ll probably bring in more talent this year, through the draft or free agency, or both. So although I love Davis, my expectations are tempered. I do expect them to let go of both Sanders and Beasley, and I expect Davis to earn a full-time role moving forward, making him a much more valuable dynasty asset than he was a year ago or even a few weeks ago.

Has he really earned a full-time role? He has ever since Week 14 of this year. If we split those games, here are his numbers:

Since Week 14, Davis has played 362/426 WR snaps, for an 85% snap share. He has averaged nine targets and a 29% WR target share compared to 36% for Diggs. It is only six games but it is the most recent trend. Davis has been an incredibly efficient receiver in the NFL thru two seasons with a 16.4 yards per reception mark and lots of red zone production including many touchdowns. The following chart does not include his monster playoff performance, but he ranks seventh on this list of most efficient red zone touchdown scorers over the last two seasons (with at least 15 RZ targets in that time). He is 17th among WRs in TDs during this time (he is top-10 when you include the playoff games). When you look at this list assorted by the efficiency metric in the far right column, it is largely a veritable list of fantasy studs. I think it is worth noting there are several teammate pairings here. I think it is fair to expect that if Chris Godwin (WR – TB) had been healthy this year, he would be much higher on this list, at least in terms of the raw target and TD numbers if not efficiency. 

What that means is that elite offenses can support multiple receiving options in fantasy. It isn’t all about red zone production, though, and Davis will need to cement his role as the number two in the Buffalo offense between the 20s if he is to take a big leap forward. 

Ok, so I think he is good and probably getting better. He is only 22 years old and going into only his third NFL season with one of the best young quarterbacks in the game on one of the best offenses. Diggs will be 30 before we know it and Davis could be in a position to take over as the main weapon on the team. Research shows that the second-year breakout phenomenon is more common than the third-year breakout nowadays with WRs. But many people have missed the fine print there, which is to say that third-year breakouts are still a thing. It is well within the range of outcomes for Diggs and Davis to be a deadly fantasy combo for the next few years.

That is the upside ceiling. My more realistic take and what I think readers should do is temper their expectations a bit. By most rankings I have seen, and including my own, Davis came into this recent fantasy offseason as something like a WR3/4, between WR36 and WR50. I had him worth 10 franchise points and made the decision to bump him to about 12 before the NFL playoffs began, due to my belief at that point that he had won the job from Sanders but that he still wasn’t necessarily anything super special.

Then he blew up last week and I am forced to bump his value to about 15. That is roughly the equivalent of a late first-round pick or early second, I would say something like the 1.09, though that is premature as I have not really dived into the 2022 rookie class just yet. Even if he really has cemented the number two role in Buffalo then I am not comfortable bumping him up much more than a fringe WR2 at most. Something like WR25 or 26. Dan Hindery has him right around the same in terms of value, but I will be interested to see what that looks like in February after the playoff explosion is taken into account. Other calcs are showing similar valuations of a late first.

So although I love the guy, realistically I’m not doing much here. I do expect them to bring in more talent, and they would be smart to find better players than Sanders and Beasley if they are to remain competitive next year. There is a very real outcome where Davis remains a valuable but part-time player. Not unlike the Rashard Higgins comp above. Day 3 picks don’t have a great track record.

I believe he has transcended the draft capital black mark, though, and has a bright future, so I am largely holding. As mentioned before, it would be crazy of me not to divest and see what I can get. I have put him on some trading blocks and we shall see what I find. Right now I would not trade him for the 1.08 unless I was OTC and knew who I wanted. A future 2023 first from anyone would do it, though. I don’t expect to see anything better than a second, and it will depend on my roster needs whether I would entertain such a deal or one close to it. I would easily pay a future second-rounder for him.

Thanks for reading! Feel free to reach out to me to chat about fantasy football on Twitter @Ship_Chaser and follow along with me on my journey as I chase six-figure paydays! Look for my new articles soon!