Buffalo, N.Y. (WGR 550) - Since 2020, there have been exactly 50 wide receivers drafted by NFL teams in the fourth round or later.
Of those 50, only one has already caught 20 or more touchdown passes in his NFL career.
Buffalo Bills wide receiver Gabe Davis.
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Of those 50, only one has caught more than just one playoff touchdown so far in their NFL career.
Also Davis, with a whopping six!
Even without his record-setting four-touchdown performance against the Kansas City Chiefs in the 2021 AFC Divisional Round, Davis would still rank first in total playoff touchdowns for any receiver drafted in the fourth round or later since 2020.
In just the last two playoff years alone, in four games, Davis has caught 19 passes for 389 yards and six scores. That’s an average of close to five catches and over 97 yards per-game, earning him the nickname “Playoff Gabe” from many fans.
Davis’ 26 combined regular and postseason touchdown catches are the most ever recorded in the first three seasons for any player drafted in the fourth round or later, breaking Tyreek Hill’s 25 from 2016-18.
So it’s safe to say through three seasons in Buffalo, Davis’ overall production has far outweighed his draft position compared to his peers.
Now he enters a critical Year 4, the final year of his rookie deal. Bills general manager Brandon Beane is faced with a decision to either extend Davis now or let him play out his contract and possibly do it after the season.
Beane has said multiple times he will begin that process and evaluation following the 2023 NFL Draft.
How the draft unfolds may even play a role in how it ultimately works out.
“Right now, the focus is on the draft and getting through there,” said Beane, who drafted Davis three years ago out of the University of Central Florida (UCF). “We’ve got a few guys that are in that role of going into that last contract year. I think right now, it’s just focus on the draft and see where our roster is at that point, and then start looking for guys that we would extend, whether it’s him or any of the other guys.”
Defensive tackle Ed Oliver is one of those players Beane mentions. Kicker Tyler Bass was one of them at the time before being re-signed to a new four-year contract.
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Beane said all of this a couple weeks ago during his pre-draft meeting with the media at the start of offseason workouts. It all came as a bit of a surprise, considering Beane said he normally waits to do any of that.
“That’s generally something I start looking at in the spring, summer,” Beane said. “And it is planning. Where are we going to have some holes? Where do we need to add a longer-term plan, if we can financially make that work? All of that would have to happen.”
So the question now is if Beane and the organization feel Davis is part of their long-term plan at the cost it may take to re-sign him.
It’s also not just an either/or proposition. Beane could take a wideout early in this week’s draft, and feel they’ve set themselves up with a solid receiver on a rookie deal over the next four years. In that case, essentially, Davis’ replacement on the roster.
He could also take one, even in the first round, and still extend Davis.
A large segment of "Bills Mafia" has been clamoring for another wide receiver for a couple of years, and that train horn is now louder than a critical defensive third down at Highmark Stadium.
Some who are riding on it simply want the Bills to add more weapons, in addition to Davis. Others are looking towards the future and a possible Davis replacement, willing to let him walk, while pointing to a “drop rate” of 10.3%, according to Pro Football Focus.
However, as with many statistics, there is plenty of nuance and other factors that go into that.
Davis is on the field more than any other Bills receiver, logging 85% of snaps last season. That’s despite missing a game with an ankle injury. He’s asked to do the most, too. He’s their best blocking wideout and runs, on average, the deepest routes.
As the website Cover1 points out, among 45 NFL receivers with at least 250 targets over the last three seasons, Davis has the best first down rate, touchdown rate, yards per-catch, and explosive reception rate.
Maybe most impressively is he’s done all of that while having the highest average depth of target, all while playing half his games in Orchard Park, where the Autumn wind howls and the snow can’t wait to be invited to the party.
Even quarterback Josh Allen, who made the biggest leap of his career from 2019 to 2020 after the Bills drafted Davis and traded for Stefon Diggs, knows how much all of those things matter.
“I think sometimes when you look at stats, they’re a little misleading when it comes to him,” Allen said. “He does all the dirty work that you ask him to do. He runs the clear routes, he runs the posts, he’s running the deeper routes.”
Head coach Sean McDermott echoed that, saying Davis’ job description has “run the gamut” since he arrived in Buffalo.
And Davis has cashed in in those deeper routes better than anyone else in the league, regardless of draft position, since he entered the NFL.
Since his rookie season, the Sanford, Florida native has finished fourth, ninth, and second in yards per-catch, averaging over 17, 15, and 17 yards, respectively, each year.
Over that period, he’s the only player in the NFL with, at least, 120 catches who’s also averaged over 17.0 yards per-grab (17.6).
Allen also said he and the offense overall can do a better job to accentuate Davis and his skill set.
“I think putting him in better situations to have some catch-and-run opportunities, and maybe move him around a little more is going to help us, help this offense, help him,” the Bills quarterback said.
There’s already evidence to back that up, too.
According to Cover-1 data, when Davis wasn’t on the field last season, the Bills ran a higher percentage of motion, play-action, and RPOs. That’s an indication that offensive coordinator Ken Dorsey had to manufacture ways to get others open more often without Davis drawing attention.
It hasn’t been just on the field where Davis has proved his value to the club, either.
Beane and McDermott preach work ethic and “Bills DNA,” and consistently point out how much of that oozes out of the 24-year-old.
Davis hurt his ankle prior to the team’s Week 2 game last season, and it clearly bothered him for most, if not all of the remainder of the season. McDermott said Davis “pushed through it like no other out there.”
In 15 regular season games played last year, Davis caught 48 passes for 836 yards and seven touchdowns. He added nine grabs for 147 yards and a touchdown in two playoff games.
Just three weeks after injuring his ankle and missing the Week 2 "Monday Night Football" game against the Tennessee Titans, the Bills played at home against the Pittsburgh Steelers.
On the third play of the game with the ball sitting at the Bills’ own two-yard line, Davis got loose on a deep post. Allen threaded the needle for a 98-yard catch-and-run touchdown.
As Allen had Steelers breathing down on him while standing in his own end zone, the play could have been disaster to start the game. But the trust factor the two have developed on and off the field gave him the confidence to sling the ball to Davis as the wideout was racing past defenders.
“The dude just does all the right things,” Allen said of Davis. “He does what you ask him to do and he goes above and beyond. He strains each day when we’re working out here. He’s a guy that you can trust and depend on. You can’t say a bad word about the dude. He’s one of my favorite people, too. We hang out a lot. He works his tail off so it’s very easy to trust him.”
While Beane will be weaving his way through the draft and then look at a possible Davis extension, the receiver will navigate his way through the most important offseason of his young career.
However, as his head coach explained, that won’t change a thing about Davis nor how he goes about his work.
“He’s a guy that’s always been mature beyond his years in the way that he was raised and how he handles things,” McDermott said. “I think he’s got unique ability to compartmentalize, and that will serve him well as he moves forward here.”
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