Jacksonville Jaguars 2016 Offseason: Don’t forget about Ryan Davis
By Daniel Lago
The Jacksonville Jaguars are putting together their short list of free agent targets to go after in a few weeks and it should be a wild few days when the market does open. The Jaguars have to most cap space in the NFL heading into the free agency period and they could have even more money to spend once they release certain players (Chris Clemons, Toby Gerhart, Zane Beadles).
Speaking of current players, the Jaguars have a few of their own guys coming off contracts looking to sign new deals. Backup quarterback Chad Henne already signed a relatively lucrative deal to come back and sit behind Blake Bortles, but another guy who should be back is defensive lineman Ryan Davis.
Currently a restricted free agent, Davis was the most productive and versatile defensive lineman on the team over the past 2 seasons. Davis’ sack production took a dip in 2015 (3.5 last year down from 6.5 in 2014), but any fan will tell you how frustrating it was to see him sitting on the bench far too often. Davis is certainly more of a situational pass rusher than an every down guy, but the Jaguars refused to play him more despite the embarrassingly poor production of the defensive ends.
Pro Football Focus has been a fan of Davis for a while now, and they think the Jaguars should re-sign the young pass rusher.
"Davis (71.2) is a restricted free agent, but is a smart option for the Jaguars to bring back. At the very least, he’s the type of player who can do damage as a situational pass-rusher, with 14 sacks, 14 hits, and 36 hurries in the past three seasons. What we’ve seen in his career so far is that he’s not an every down player, but someone who can make an impact if used correctly."
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Davis isn’t going to command a big deal so he should most certainly be back with the Jaguars. His status as a restricted free agent makes it marginally more difficult for another team to sign him away and the Jaguars need some sort of continuity along the defensive line.
The only issue will be what kind of money to give a player they just don’t utilize enough. Davis only played 245 snaps last year – that only accounted for 21% of the defensive plays. The only players with less snaps were Sen’Derrick Marks (injured) and Chris Smith. Davis is used quite often on special teams (176 snaps), but players don’t get paid based on special teams.
Davis should be back and hopefully he’ll be more productive with better players around him in 2016.