Titans free agency: Corey Davis should be the priority over Jonnu Smith

Titans need to realize this

Jonnu Smith’s development for the Tennessee Titans has been a steady climb from a backup who couldn’t catch the ball consistently to a fringe Pro Bowl tight end who still has untapped potential.

I have to get that out of the way because I don’t want this to seem like a hit piece on Jonnu Smith. In fact, I think franchise tagging Smith is the smartest plan that the Titans can go with at this point given the cost of the position and how interested other teams will be in him.

However, if the Titans sign a long-term deal with any of their own free agents then the top player that fans should be hoping for is Corey Davis. In fact, it isn’t even close and I’m pretty sure I can prove it.

It is easy to forget that Corey Davis was the Titans’ leading receiver until the second half of the final game of the season, but this tweet was from the middle of the Houston Texans game to give you a snapshot of just how well he did:

Corey Davis has grown into an elite WR2 and he could be a low-end WR1 in the right offense and he has proven that for the last two years. For some reason, people are just refusing to acknowledge this.

Let me help explain why this is a simple decision for me and why the Titans front office should be pushing for a new deal.

“Complete Player”

If I say someone is a “complete player” does that make you think they are good or bad at their job?

Somewhere along the line, the term “complete player” became a catch-all for Titans fans that had to describe the likes of Delanie Walker, Jonnu Smith, Corey Davis, Rishard Matthews, Jonnu Smith, or any other skill position player on the roster before Ryan Tannehill took over.

Some of that is because the Titans just didn’t have guys who stood out in any particular area. So, instead of getting production everyone was force-fed lines about how the Titans’ skill guys were as good as anyone in the NFL because they did a bunch of stuff that didn’t show up on the box score.

The other part of that is because talking heads like to divide players into clean, easy-to-describe roles.

As a receiver, you are either a burner, a route runner, a red zone target, or a chain mover. For tight ends, you are either an inline blocker, an H-back, a jumbo slot, or a chess piece.

The thing is, most of the guys in the NFL are a mixed bag and those descriptions don’t hold up to scrutiny.

For example, how would you define A.J. Brown? I wouldn’t call him a burner, but it seems nearly impossible for defensive backs to prevent him from 40+ yard receptions because of his speed and strength after the catch. Then again, they can’t stop him in the red zone either, so would you call him a red zone target?

Because of these labels, the nuance of what a player can do gets lost. With 20/20 hindsight I can tell you Corey Davis wasn’t producing with Marcus Mariota as his quarterback and Terry Robiskie as his OC.

However, at some point the coaches had to defend why Corey Davis wasn’t producing like a top-5 pick, and to defend him they talked about his blocking…and we have never heard the end of it.

And to be fair, Corey Davis is a very good blocker and he can block from a tight bunch set, out on the boundary, down the field, or really anywhere he need him to. That is a good thing and not a bad thing, but because his blocking ability was used as a shield in his younger years, no one wants to talk about it.

On the other hand, people love to hear that Jonnu Smith is a good blocker because it is important for them to feel like he isn’t a one-dimensional player. Again, this is definitely a good quality to have and it helps explain his additions to the offense that are outside of the box score.

Tennessee needs blockers and they need guys who can make the most of their catches because, in the Titans offense, no one gets a lot of targets. That is because the workload that Derrick Henry thrives with helps set everything up in this offense, so no skill position players are going to get force-fed passes including A.J. Brown who is the WR1.

So to recap, what does this offense need opposite A.J. Brown and on a team that has an elite running back?

A wide receiver who can block and who can make the most of his targets, someone who can do it all, to put a label on that let’s just call them a… “complete player”.

Sure, it is corny to hear about how well a wide receiver can block over and over again, but that is what this team needs and what they have thrived with over the last two seasons.

So if Corey Davis and Jonnu Smith are both above-average blockers and fits in the Titans offense, then the tie-breaker should be how dangerous they are as receivers right?

Who is the bigger matchup nightmare

I went back over the last two years on Stathead and looked at a stat that I think is the most important stat in the Titans offense for receiving threats. That is “yards per target” and in a low-volume passing offense like the Titans run, being a threat means more about what you do when you are given targets and less about your stat line.

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Jonnu Smith is no slouch. Among tight ends with 100 targets over the last two years, Smith is 7th out of 25 qualifiers in the NFL behind superstars like Travis Kelce, George Kittle, and Darren Waller.

Meanwhile, he was ahead of guys you might expect more from like Hunter Henry, T.J. Hockenson, Evan Engram, and Zach Ertz.

Since Corey Davis plays receiver, I thought it was fair to bump his filter up from 100 targets to 150+ targets. Over the past two years looking at wide receivers with 150+ targets, Corey Davis is 5th out of 50 in the NFL.

The four players in front of him are Mike Williams, Stefon Diggs, Chris Godwin, and topping the list is fellow Titans star, A.J. Brown.

I was going to make a list of the interesting players below him, but there is an easier way to explain it. Think of any receiver in the NFL and if their name isn’t Mike Williams, Stefon Diggs, Chris Godwin, or A.J. Brown and they didn’t have 150+ targets, then they had fewer yards per target than Davis over the last few seasons.

Jonnu Smith deserves a lot of praise and he is an ascending tight end in the NFL, but Corey Davis is criminally underappreciated and he is the perfect fit for one of the best offenses in the NFL. Looking at the numbers, both are matchup problems for any defense, but one is playing at a higher level and that is the guy that the Titans need to make the biggest push to sign.