Titans WR Corey Davis looks great.
Right now if I asked Tennessee Titans fans which player has impressed them the most his season, I imagine people would overwhelmingly pick Ryan Tannehill on offense and Jeffery Simmons on defense.
However, Corey Davis is quietly stacking solid games on top of each other and is on pace for is best season in the NFL.
Every time I bring that up, the pushback seems to be that the only reason that Davis is having a big year is because he is because A.J. Brown is out. On the surface, this makes sense because I have always said that Corey Davis is a player who thrives with volume so fewer options should mean more volume, right?
Then again, the best part of the Titans offense under Arthur Smith (and assistant OC Ryan Tannehill) is that they have been big on running the hurry-up offense to make sure that they can take advantage of mismatches they see on the field. Does that mean that Corey Davis can keep up his volume if the Titans brain trust thinks that he is the biggest mismatch vs the “WR2” coverage he might be getting?
That was a lot to think about, so I went back and watched the offense in their three games this year to try to figure out whether we should expect Corey Davis to regress from what looks like a career year, or if we should expect him to keep making an impact regardless of who is around him.
When everything was said and done, my focus pushed me all the way back to 2019 to look at even more numbers, and long story short I think I figured out what the Titans passing game will look like this season. Let’s start with what 2020 has looked like with and without A.J. Brown.
Corey Davis with/without A.J. Brown
In the two-game sample size that we have with Corey Davis as the WR1 this season, he ended up with 8 catches on 11 targets for 105 yards and a touchdown.
Looking at the total numbers on offense, that means that over this stretch he ended up with an 18% market share of the targets in the passing game. Compare that to last season with Ryan Tannehill as the starter, and you would be right in thinking that this has led to an increase in his market share of the targets. In 2019 his target share was 16.7% (42 of 251), but here is where the wrinkle comes in.
We have actually seen Corey Davis as the WR2 in this offense way back in Week 1 vs the Denver Broncos. Now you could argue that A.J. Brown was playing hurt, but that doesn’t change how the defense was covering both targets (more on that later).
In that game, Davis had 7 receptions on 8 targets and 101 yards. At the end of the night, he actually had an 18.6% market share of the targets in that game, the same number as A.J. Brown.
So what do those numbers mean? It is a small sample size, but to me, those numbers mean that:
-In 2019 the Titans didn’t think that Corey Davis was winning his matchups enough so he was only getting 16.7% of the targets.
-When everyone was healthy in 2020, Davis was able to beat his matchup as frequently than A.J. Brown was and he was rewarded with 18.6% of the targets.
-After Brown was hurt, Davis was still winning his matchups enough to warrant 18% of the targets, but he didn’t have as much of an impact in terms of yards because of the defense focusing more on him.
So what?
This offense is all about misdirection and taking advantage of the weakest parts of a defense, so if the Titans don’t like a matchup that A.J. Brown has (vs A.J. Bouye for example) and they like the physicality of Corey Davis vs the other team’s worst CB then he is going to get more targets regardless of whether or not they think he should be the WR1.
The core belief of this offense is that you:
1. Run the ball until the defense forces you to stop.
2. Attack the defense horizontally in the middle of the field which puts extra stress on the linebackers.
3. When the defense counters by bringing more bodies in the box to stop this, then you take shots deep to punish them.
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So far this year, the Titans have actually targetted Jonnu Smith and Adam Humphries more than anyone else with both players at 20 targets. Again, that points to #2 on that list of core beliefs, attacking the defense in the middle of the field.
The “so what” of all of this for Corey Davis, is that all of this is pointing to his workload staying steady or actually improving once A.J. Brown (and even Adam Humphries) are ready to play.
Running the ball will come in time, the middle of the field is being stressed (which includes Davis) and the deep targets should be coming sooner rather than later for Davis. All of these targets that travel 15 yards in the air should turn into shot plays 30+ yards down the field as teams struggle to stop the YAC threats (Brown/Jonnu Smith) and chain movers (Humphries/Anthony Firkser).
Corey Davis is on pace for an 80 catch, 1,100-yard season, and based on all of this, I think that could be underselling what he might do for this offense by the end of the year which is very exciting.