The dream is alive, Titans might re-sign Corey Davis

Titans are trying to re-sign Corey Davis.

Tennessee Titans fans, thank Turron Davenport for brightening your day on this fine Friday afternoon.

I’ll be honest, after Jon Robinson’s press conference a few weeks ago it seemed like Corey Davis was going to get the Jack Conklin treatment. While the front office wanted him, they didn’t want to overpay and they were going to be conservative with their offer.

Jon Robinson is great, but it is hard to stomach watching young talent land on another team just as they are about to hit their prime. With Jack Conklin, the Titans were backed into a corner because they had to make two huge re-signings (Ryan Tannehill and Derrick Henry) and couldn’t afford to take a chance on Conklin at the price that he was asking.

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2020 saw Conklin finally healthy and given All-Pro honors, and while that stings in retrospect, everyone understood why things went down the way things went down.

Corey Davis is a completely different story and here are the main reasons why:

-Davis never sustained a major injury

-While he never hit 1,000 yards, he has been one of the most productive WRs per target in the NFL

-There is no ready-made backup on the roster for Davis like there was with Conklin (Dennis Kelly)

-We all saw how poorly it can go trusting a 1st round rookie to step up to the plate even when you are making a move that everyone thinks is “safe but unspectacular”

What changed?

While I was spiraling, it turns out that a deal between the Titans and Corey Davis might still be possible.

Turron Davenport of ESPN was asked on the PFF Fantasy Football Podcast with Ian Hartitz if he thought the Titans would bring back Corey Davis or invest resources in an outside free agent and he said:

"“That is a tough question…I think they want him to be back but it just depends on that number. So for the sake of not sitting on the fence, I’m gonna say he’ll be back. I believe they will be able to figure out a number that works for all parties and bring him back and he settled in perfectly into a role opposite A.J. Brown.”"

Obviously fans were interested in this and asked him about the situation on Twitter where he responded:

"“From what I’ve been told both parties want to make it work.”"

This is in no way a guarantee that a deal will get done and it isn’t even a case where Davenport is saying that both teams are working towards a deal.

However, it is more positive progress than anything that was rumored to be going on with the Jack Conklin deal.

While I don’t want to make too many assumptions, the fact that the Titans cut Adam Humphries yesterday only increases the need for more wide receiver help in 2021. A.J. Brown is the only receiver under contract for the Titans right now and I think Tennessee would have rather rolled the dice on maybe getting Humphries back in 2021 if they didn’t think they were making progress with Davis.

Based on the lack of news of positive progress towards other free agents, I think the front office realizes that they need to keep Davis in Nashville more than other names like Jayon Brown or Jonnu Smith (who is still a tag or tag-and-trade prospect).

With both sides working to get a deal done, I want to quickly talk about what that might cost. My co-host on the No Nonsense Podcast, Luke Worsham broke down what it should cost in a great article.

While he gave the ceiling and the floor for a potential deal, his final projected deal had an AAV of $13.75 million lands him just inside the top-20 at his position. However, after guys like Allen Robinson, Chris Godwin, Kenny Golladay, and Juju Smith-Schuester have bigger name value and will likely get overpaid or get the franchise tag, pushing Davis back outside of the top-20.

I would have no problem paying Corey Davis that kind of money because I think he is the dream fit for this offense opposite A.J. Brown and the chemistry between the skill position players on this offense is great. Why mess with what is working?

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