RADIO
Is there a player who has as much hype heading into this season as Bills wide receiver Gabe Davis?
Davis has been talked up by pretty much everyone as a sleeper this year. That talk has gotten, IMO, out of hand. Davis has value this season, but the way he's been hyped up has gone too far.
It's time to stop the hype train. Let's talk about why I'm off of the Gabriel Davis train.
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Where Is Gabe Davis Ranked In Fantasy Football?
Analysts are all over the place when it comes to Gabriel Davis. In our half-PPR redraft rankings here at RotoBaller, Davis is ranked as our WR28 and is 65th overall. That puts him in between Jerry Jeudy and Chris Godwin in the rankings and finds him ahead of players like Adam Thielen, Amon-Ra St. Brown, and Elijah Moore.
At FantasyPros, where they amalgamate rankings from analysts from all over, Davis is a little lower at WR34 overall. There he's behind Godwin, St. Brown, Thielen, and Moore. I have to say: I agree with the overall value he has among all fantasy analysts a little more than I agree with his value from our RotoBaller rankers.
Breaking down how various industry people have Davis ranked overall, he's someone's WR12 overall. RotoBaller's Pierre Camus has him at WR17, which...come on, Pierre! I know you're reading this and I'd just love to know one thing: why?
I much prefer where another RotoBaller has him ranked. Andersen Pickard (who doesn't contribute to our site rankings but does write for the site and contributes to FantasyPros' rankings) has Davis at WR41. That's a little lower than I'd have him, but it's more in line with what I expect from Davis this year.
Why is Gabe Davis Overhyped in Fantasy Football?
Here's my issue with Gabriel Davis: he's playing a role in Buffalo that we haven't really seen be successful with Josh Allen at QB. Stefon Diggs is the team's main outside threat. The slot role should go to either Isaiah McKenzie or Jamison Crowder. Davis will be the other outside receiver. And that second outside receiver role...well, it just hasn't really produced much.
Last year, Stefon Diggs was targeted 164 times. Cole Beasley, the main slot receiver, saw 112 targets. The top outside receiver, Emmanuel Sanders, saw just 72 targets.
Now, I suppose you could argue that Sanders and Davis combined for 135 targets and if Davis is playing that role alone, he'll get a lot closer to that 135 number. And you could argue that McKenzie/Crowder in the slot won't be as reliable as Beasley was and will see fewer targets.
That's a lot of speculation. The Bills were in this same position in 2020, with 100-plus targets for Diggs and Beasley, then Davis splitting targets with John Brown as the other outside guy. In 2019, Brown (the No. 1 receiver before Diggs arrived) and Beasley both had 100-plus targets, and the No. 3 receiver in targets was McKenzie at 39.
The main point here is that unless the way 1) the Bills use receivers and 2) the way Josh Allen targets receivers fundamentally changes this season, the pecking order will be Diggs, then the slot (McKenzie and Crowder might split this position, so it's possible Davis gets more targets than either individually) and then Davis.
Now, being the third option in an offense that throws the ball like this one does and doesn't throw to the tight ends or running backs a ton isn't a bad thing! Davis will get targets and he'll do good things with those targets. However, the way Davis' ADP has shot up this year has made it so that he's being drafted at his ceiling. Something I hate is drafting a player at his ceiling.
Another thing about Davis is that I'm concerned about his consistency. Davis had one game in the regular season last year with 100 yards, and he only caught three passes in that game. A lot of this hype surrounding Davis comes from his playoff showing against the Chiefs when he caught eight passes for 201 yards and four touchdowns.
I have nothing negative to say about that game. It was an impressive game! The Chiefs had no answer for Davis, but it was one game. That one game represented the second-most targets Davis had seen all year and the most receptions. His only regular season game with more targets was Week 18 against the Jets when he was targeted 14 times, but he only caught three of those for 39 yards.
He had a three-week stretch where he caught four touchdowns in the regular season, but he averaged just four catches per game over that span. Look: I believe Davis could be an excellent player in the right situation, but I'm not sure Buffalo is the right situation if you're expecting some kind of gargantuan season out of him.
Davis will be fine. There will be plenty of weeks where Davis will be a positive part of your lineup. Past usage trends for Buffalo suggest that Davis won't be on the field as much as you think he'll be. Past usage also suggests he won't be targeted as much as you think he'll be.
It's also worth looking at some advanced data from PlayerProfiler. Davis ranked eighth among all receivers in average target distance (good!) but was just 77th in air yard share because Allen wasn't looking his way enough. That changes some this year with Davis set to start all year, but it's still a little concerning.
The bigger issue is with his catch rate. His True Catch Rate, which filters out non-catchable targets, was 79.5%, which ranked 75th among wide receivers. Davis isn't very consistent when it comes to bringing passes in. And if his volume is capped by the nature of this offense and he's not able to haul in enough of the targets that he does get, he's not going to be able to achieve the things that a lot of people think he'll achieve.
Where Should I Draft Gabe Davis in Fantasy Football?
I view Davis as a WR3/4 play. He's being drafted as a WR2/3 play. So at that current ADP, I don't think I'm going to really have Davis on many of my rosters.
One exception is that on Sleeper, Davis has an ADP of WR34. If I'm in a league on Sleeper that's going pretty chalky, I would take Davis at that spot. On other platforms, I'm likely going to see guys like Michael Thomas, Elijah Moore, and Adam Thielen all on the board still when I'm considering Davis, and in those situations, I feel better about those other names.
Davis will be fine this year., but there's no value in Davis. Unless we see a sudden drop in his ADP as we approach the start of the season, I'll be actively avoiding him.
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