Can we talk about Gabe Davis's performance?

[BullBuchanan]

I'm not a davis fan, but you can't really judge how many targets/catches he got when the QB play was as poor as it was. Maybe (probably) he should have gotten a lot more targets. Would he have caught them? Who knows?

[Pokebball]

12 hours ago, MasterStrategist said:

Not ready to put anything on any WR, until we see Josh improve his decision making & play other defenses.

 

Jets were practically giving 5 yard passes all game, Josh started to go away from taking those.

 

Not taking any honus off Gabe or others, just not the right time.

 

It's basically the same as trying to put too much praise on the secondary, yet.  Very hopeful, but we need to see a quality passing attack.

I'd agree that the short passes were more the open shot, but I'd strongly disagree that the Jets were practically giving them up. Most every pass was very well defended.

 

Regarding Gabe, the guy runs poor routes IMO. He throws very few fakes and therefore he creates little space. Against teams with a strong secondary, like the Jets, he creates very little space. That makes it more difficult on all other receivers as well as the QB.

[newcam2012]

4 hours ago, The Jokeman said:

Davis also needs targets, I think Josh only threw his way four times during the game as I recall. So how's he supposed to get 6-8 catches?

Get open!

7 minutes ago, Pokebball said:

I'd agree that the short passes were more the open shot, but I'd strongly disagree that the Jets were practically giving them up. Most every pass was very well defended.

 

Regarding Gabe, the guy runs poor routes IMO. He throws very few fakes and therefore he creates little space. Against teams with a strong secondary, like the Jets, he creates very little space. That makes it more difficult on all other receivers as well as the QB.

Exactly why he won't be resigned. 

[Capco]

12 hours ago, Royale with Cheese said:

Gabe Davis is the kid when you played backyard football where you forget to draw a play up for, he asks what he should run and you say “just go long.”

 

Then when everyone else is covered, you just throw it downfield to him and he will catch it 50% of the time.  
 

Those kids did have value and that’s Gabe’s value.  Just a few big chunk plays a game, not targeted very often.

That was literally me in backyard football.  I feel attacked!  😄

11 hours ago, Dr.Sack said:

Allen has a rocket arm, with a 1995 Intel processing chip. He needs a RAM & Processor upgrade. 

But we got to the moon with rockets and 60s hardware.  So if you're right, that means the moon is the limit for Allen (i.e., 1 step above the sky!).

[gobills404]

The Jets made taking away the intermediate to deep ball a priority and that’s the only area Gabe can win in. I think he can still be effective if defenses are giving looks he can take advantage of, but I wanna see a heavy rotation at WR2 like we did with CB2 last year. He’s just way too 1-dimensional of a player to be out there on every play.

[JESSEFEFFER]

5 hours ago, Ethan in Cleveland said:

What were the two missed targets to Davis? If one was the INT how is that his fault? The safety caught it before it got to him. It was a bad throw that should have been closer to the sideline.

I dont recall the other missed target. Certainly don't recall him dropping a pass.

 

Interesting.  What would you call that route that Gabe ran?   I am not sure what it was.  It just sort of bent to the sideline, allowed Whitehead to get an early jump maybe even got Gabe through the catchpoint too early.  Normally we see more of a direct line to the DB and then a break and we might call it a "crisp" pattern.  Maybe that's the way he is supposed to run it or maybe it was a lazy rounded break that gave the DB a chance to jump it.  I don't think we'll know other than by looking for video of other times he's run that route because coaches and players don't share that information often.

 

The fumble was odd too.   The snap almost hit the man in motion and Josh was looking to the right.  Did it come too early?  I have not relooked at either play other than the broadcast replay on Monday so these were just my initial impressions.  After a game like that, I tend to want to decompress and move on.  I'd rather not play coroner and try to figure out how/why the victim died, so  I could be wrong about both.

[HappyDays]

13 minutes ago, JESSEFEFFER said:

What would you call that route that Gabe ran?   I am not sure what it was.  It just sort of bent to the sideline, allowed Whitehead to get an early jump maybe even got Gabe through the catchpoint too early.  Normally we see more of a direct line to the DB and then a break and we might call it a "crisp" pattern.  Maybe that's the way he is supposed to run it or maybe it was a lazy rounded break that gave the DB a chance to jump it. 

 

Unless the Bills run that concept differently from how every other team has ever run it, Davis's job there is to make the safety think he could run a post before cutting to the corner. Instead he carried a big flashing sign that said I'M RUNNING THIS WAY -> and Whitehead had an easy play on the ball.

[SCBills]

Yea.. Aikman went in on Gabe for that route, and justifiably so.  

 

He's just not sudden enough to win quick, and if teams are flooding the intermediate to deep zones, I'm not exactly sure what Gabe gives us out there besides another good blocking WR.

[Ethan in Cleveland]

24 minutes ago, JESSEFEFFER said:

 

Interesting.  What would you call that route that Gabe ran?   I am not sure what it was.  It just sort of bent to the sideline, allowed Whitehead to get an early jump maybe even got Gabe through the catchpoint too early.  Normally we see more of a direct line to the DB and then a break and we might call it a "crisp" pattern.  Maybe that's the way he is supposed to run it or maybe it was a lazy rounded break that gave the DB a chance to jump it.  I don't think we'll know other than by looking for video of other times he's run that route because coaches and players don't share that information often.

 

The fumble was odd too.   The snap almost hit the man in motion and Josh was looking to the right.  Did it come too early?  I have not relooked at either play other than the broadcast replay on Monday so these were just my initial impressions.  After a game like that, I tend to want to decompress and move on.  I'd rather not play coroner and try to figure out how/why the victim died, so  I could be wrong about both.

Fair criticism of the route but someone else in another thread said Knox and Kincaid ran it virtually the same way. So maybe coaching. Maybe it just needs to be a ball that goes to the sideline. 

You saw the fumble as I did as well. He was looking to his right. So either he was not prepared or the snap was early.  They won't let us know. Regardless he collected himself but failed to secure the ball well enough. He has got to learn to give up on certain plays and just move to the next down.  A 1 yard gain is no different than a 1 yard loss on first down. 

[PBF81]

Watch Davis have a huge game this week.  LOL  

 

 

[What a Tuel]

4 hours ago, RunTheBall said:

Josh threw a horrible ball on that out route to Davis that got picked but if Gabe rounded out that cut any more it would have been a sphere

 

Josh should have made a different choice, but no one can say Davis ran a good route that play. The guy telegraphed his route and allowed Whitehead to jump the route.

[Jerry Jabber]

5 hours ago, The Jokeman said:

Davis also needs targets, I think Josh only threw his way four times during the game as I recall. So how's he supposed to get 6-8 catches?

So it’s just that simple, Josh needs to throw it more to Davis? Even if Davis is not open and runs poor routes?

[The Jokeman]

20 minutes ago, Jerry Jabber said:

So it’s just that simple, Josh needs to throw it more to Davis? Even if Davis is not open and runs poor routes?

The original mention was Davis should get 6-8 catches a game, sorry it's an unrealistic expectation if he's not getting the targets to reach it. 

[Dr.Sack]

2 hours ago, Capco said:

That was literally me in backyard football.  I feel attacked!  😄

But we got to the moon with rockets and 60s hardware.  So if you're right, that means the moon is the limit for Allen (i.e., 1 step above the sky!).

But that required a team of rocket scientists led by Daboll who Belichick says is the smartest coach in football. Is Dorsey not capable of being Oppenheimer? Do we need a few more ‘reformed’ German rocket scientists? 

[Capco]

Just now, Dr.Sack said:

But that required a team of rocket scientists led by Daboll who Belichick says is the smartest coach in football. Is Dorsey not capable of being Oppenheimer? Do we need a few more ‘reformed’ German rocket scientists? 

This turned out to be a brilliant, hilarious, and surprisingly applicable analogy lol.  

[Straight Hucklebuck]

In the 17-game era: 

 

2023 Targets/Game

Hill = 15 (1st)

Diggs = 13 (4th)

 

2022 Targets/Game

Jefferson = 184 (1st)

Diggs = 154 (5th)

 

2021 Targets/Game

Kupp = 191 (1st)

Diggs = 164 (5th)

 

The realistic bar seems to be 10.8 - 11.5 targets/game on average. So realistically, Josh shouldn't be targeting Diggs much less than he did on Monday Night. 

 

 

2 hours ago, SCBills said:

Yea.. Aikman went in on Gabe for that route, and justifiably so.  

 

He's just not sudden enough to win quick, and if teams are flooding the intermediate to deep zones, I'm not exactly sure what Gabe gives us out there besides another good blocking WR.

It's Year 4 now for the hardest worker in the room. 

 

But our Coaches have it written in stone that he must play every snap of every game. 

 

It's never his fault though, I'm sure he was hampered by a rolled ankle from OTAs that will carry throughout the season.

[Jerry Jabber]

41 minutes ago, The Jokeman said:

The original mention was Davis should get 6-8 catches a game, sorry it's an unrealistic expectation if he's not getting the targets to reach it. 

He was on the field for over 90% of the plays. With that high of a percentage, he should be getting at least those amount of passes, if not more. But considering Davis doesn’t run a full route tree, he’s limited to what he can do and shouldn’t be the #2 WR.

[BananaB]

Lol! People want Allen to throw to the shorter routes and want to target Gabe more often. Does Gabe even run short routes?

Edited September 14, 2023 by BananaB

[Straight Hucklebuck]

7 minutes ago, Jerry Jabber said:

He was on the field for over 90% of the plays. With that high of a percentage, he should be getting at least those amount of passes, if not more. But considering Davis doesn’t run a full route tree, he’s limited to what he can do and shouldn’t be the #2 WR.

Get him out of the game more often and rotate his snaps between Sherfield and Shakir. 

 

The coaches hate Shakir and love blocking so even if it was Sherfield that mixed in, but yeah, no reason Gabe has earned 95%+ snap count. 

 

He's one of the most inefficient players in the league. 

6 minutes ago, BananaB said:

Lol! People want Allen to throw to the shorter routes and want to target Gabe more often. Does Gabe even run short routes?

"People want"

 

Diggs is a balanced WR who can run all three levels. 

 

After that, what have the Bills invested in? 

 

Tight Ends - Knox at $10.8M cap hit and a 1st Rounder in Kincaid. 

 

Harty is on a 1-year $4M deal. 

 

Sherfield is 1-year veteran minimum $1.7M deal. 

 

Shakir is on a 5th-Round rookie deal. 

 

So, like it or not Josh, there is no vertical speed on this team to throw it deep regardless other than peppering Diggs with 15 targets a game.  

Edited September 14, 2023 by Straight Hucklebuck

[BananaB]

5 minutes ago, Straight Hucklebuck said:

Get him out of the game more often and rotate his snaps between Sherfield and Shakir. 

 

The coaches hate Shakir and love blocking so even if it was Sherfield that mixed in, but yeah, no reason Gabe has earned 95%+ snap count. 

 

He's one of the most inefficient players in the league. 

"People want"

 

Diggs is a balanced WR who can run all three levels. 

 

After that, what have the Bills invested in? 

 

Tight Ends - Knox at $10.8M cap hit and a 1st Rounder in Kincaid. 

 

So, like it or not Josh, there is no vertical speed on this team to throw it deep regardless other than peppering Diggs with 15 targets a game.  

Deep is all Davis can do. He don’t got the hands to catch balls in closed spaces.