For Carlton Davis III, one shock led to another. First, Buccaneers GM Jason Licht called in March to tell Davis that after six seasons in Tampa he'd been traded to the Lions. Davis' reaction? "What the f**k?" he said Wednesday with a laugh. Two months later, Davis learned he'd be facing his former team in the second game of the season.
"It was definitely a shocker, just being able to see them early," he said. "But you know, that's the NFL. We were bound to play them at some point."
Davis doesn't hold any grudges against the Bucs, the team that drafted him back in 2018. He was blindsided by the trade, sure, but "that's their decision, their organization. I was just an employee." He didn't circle the game on the schedule like some kind of grudge match. He won't "feed into the emotions of it." He said it's "not personal for me at all."
"It's all business," Davis said. "They're just the next opponent in our way, and it's a long journey. I do have a lot of love for those guys over there, but on Sunday, it's football, man. There's no friends on the field, and there won't be on Sunday."
The Lions acquired Davis in exchange for a third-round pick because they badly needed a No. 1 cornerback -- a legitimate one. The Bucs were willing to part with him because of the cap savings and their belief in the younger (and cheaper) Zyon McCollum. Dan Campbell and Aaron Glenn were fans of Davis dating back to their time as assistants with the Saints. In bringing Davis to Detroit, "we felt like we were going to get a guy who could handle his side of the field," Campbell said.
"We had a history on the other sideline watching this guy. I always thought he matched up better than anybody against Mike Thomas in Mike’s heydays. I just watched him grow that whole time I was in New Orleans and every year he got so much better. He really became -- he was the guy. You put him on an island, he was going to handle his business over there," Campbell said.
For No. 1 receivers, business was booming against the Lions last season. That includes Mike Evans, who went for 147 yards and a touchdown in Detroit's narrow playoff win over the Bucs. Davis and Evans battled each other for six years in Tampa, and "he sharpened me a lot," said Davis. "Definitely made me a better cornerback."
Davis started gushing Wednesday about Evans' ability -- his body control, his size, his dependability -- before catching himself ahead of Sunday's clash: "I don't really want to talk too much about how good he is," he laughed.
Though he was caught off guard by the trade when it happened, the 27-year-old Davis quickly came to view it as a positive. After all, the Lions had beaten his team twice last season on their way to the NFC title game. After getting the call from Licht, Davis passed the news on to his agent and his mom and "then we just moved on as a family, as a group."
"It's just an emotional roller coaster," Davis said. "Obviously, it's very random. You don't expect it, but then you start to realize what opportunity lies ahead with the Detroit Lions and how good of a team this is and the culture here. ... The change has been a good change for me. It's been a good pace. I like the guys around me and I'm happy to be here."
Davis wasn't perfect in his Lions debut, far from it. He allowed completions on nine of 14 targets in coverage, per Pro Football Focus, most of them against Cooper Kupp. And he dropped a potential pick on one of the final plays of regulation, which gnawed at him after the Lions' season-opening win.
But one of those incompletions came on fourth down where Davis was on Kupp's hip, and he tackled well in the run game. His physicality was evident. On the whole, Davis liked the way Detroit's new-look secondary performed as a unit.
"It's something to build off of, for sure. It was fun playing with those guys for the first time in live action. We've got a lot of talent around us. I'm excited to get out there again this week in front of our home crowd ... and just capitalize on the plays that we could have made," Davis said.
Davis nearly went to the visitor's sideline when he ran onto Ford Field last week, forgetting for a moment that he wasn't a guest. He won't make the same mistake on Sunday. With his old team coming to town, Davis is hungry for another victory with his new one.
"We've got a game, and somebody's gotta win and somebody's gotta lose," he said. "It's my job to make sure we win."