Tyler Davis Taking on Larger Role for Green Bay Packers

Every NFL season, teams are going to have players who come out of nowhere to contribute in a meaningful way—or at least the successful teams will. For the Green Bay Packers in recent weeks, that player has been tight end, Tyler Davis.

In what was a very under-the-radar move earlier this season, the Green Bay Packers signed Davis off the Indianapolis practice squad and on to their 53-man roster.

Davis was a 2020 sixth-round pick by Jacksonville after spending three of his collegiate seasons at UCONN and the final at Georgia. During those four years, he was targeted 98 times, catching 65 percent of those passes for 637 yards with eight touchdowns. He also graded out well as a blocker by PFF’s metrics.

Davis came to Green Bay with only 40 career offensive snaps, but over the last few weeks, he has seen his snap count start to increase, and that is likely due to his willingness and effectiveness as a blocker.

After being used sparingly for much of the year, against Baltimore, Davis saw 19 snaps, then 13 against Cleveland, and this past week against Minnesota, he actually led all Packer tight ends with 32 snaps.

Now granted, it’s a relatively small sample size, but out of 140 eligible tight ends, Davis ranks 24th by PFF’s ($$) run-blocking grading metrics. There is one play in particular from earlier this season that really showcases Davis’ effort as a blocker.

As Andy Herman of Packer Report told Cheesehead TV’s Aaron Nagler in a recent conversation, there was a run play that went away from Davis’ side of the formation but he hustled across the field as the play was unfolding to get in front of the ball carrier as a lead blocker. It’s those types of high-effort plays that show up in the film room and will lead to more playing time.

Davis’ primary responsibilities have been as a blocker, but he does have four receptions on four targets for 35 yards. One of those pass catches went for 22 yards against Baltimore up the seam.

What makes this play stand out — other than Davis picking up 22 yards — was that the Ravens sent a corner blitz, and Aaron Rodgers hung in the pocket as long as he could before delivering the pass to Davis—this shows us that to some degree, there is a level of trust that has been established between the two.

Davis also has the fifth-most special teams snaps on the Green Bay Packers, despite not joining them until late September. His three solo tackles are also the sixth-most among all of Green Bay’s special teams contributors.

Moving forward, expectations shouldn’t be that Davis is going to fill up the stat sheet—that’s just simply not what he’s asked to do. However, we all know how important blocking ability is to the tight end position in this Matt LaFleur offense, not to mention that Davis’ versatility and ability to lineup across the formation helps LaFleur achieve that illusion of complexity he’s often talking about.

So with that, we should expect to continue seeing more of Davis in the coming weeks.