Gabe Davis Fantasy Value: Gabe Davis has posted three consecutive similarly looking seasons statistically and will look to take the next step as a fantasy football asset with Trevor Lawrence and the Jacksonville Jaguars. Logic would state that this move indicates the end of Calvin Ridley’s tenure on the team – let’s dive in to see where the value lies in an offense with room for growth.
What Is the Fantasy Impact of Gabe Davis Signing With the Jacksonville Jaguars?
While Davis was maddening to roster on a week-to-week basis during his four seasons with the Buffalo Bills, what we got in the end was oddly stable.
- 2020: 7 touchdown catches and a 56.5% catch rate
- 2021: 6 touchdown catches and a 55.6% catch rate
- 2022: 7 touchdown catches and a 51.6% catch rate
- 2023: 7 touchdown catches and a 55.6% catch rate
Last season, he scored in a career-best four straight games, and we thought he was poised to elevate to a weekly option – he scored just three times over his next 12 games. He posted four games with over 85 yards and a touchdown in 2023, and that’s great (one more such performance than Brandon Aiyuk had), but that was more than offset by his five receptionless showings.
Will he gain stability in Jacksonville?
If you want to argue that the move from Josh Allen to Trevor Lawrence is an upgrade in terms of arm talent, you’re facing an uphill battle if we are using what we’ve seen recently as a basis.
2023 Passing Metrics
- Lawrence: Blitzed on 28% of pass attempts
- Lawrence: Off-target on 18.4% of his passes
- Allen: Blitzed on 29.7% of pass attempts
- Allen: Off-target on 13.5% of his passes
Maybe Lawrence’s projectable volume levels out the fact that he was off-target more often last season despite facing blitzes at a lower rate, but counting this as an upward move is a tough sell after last season.
Jacksonville seems poised to move on from Calvin Ridley after one season, and while that opens up volume, I don’t expect Davis to be the primary beneficiary.
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Evan Engram hauled in at least four passes in every game a season ago on his way to a position best 114 catches. There’s not much room for growth in the volume department, but I do like his chances of scoring at a much higher rate (once every 35.8 targets in 2023).
Engram was already in my second tier of tight end for redraft 2024 leagues, and he has as good a claim as anyone to be the top of that tier, making him a strong mid-round option and a nice middle ground if you want stability at the position without paying a premium.
Christian Kirk missed five games last season and was inconsistent by his standards. The 27-year-old receiver, however, is in a spot to see 7-9 targets per game (7.8 in 2022 with the Ridley-less Jaguars), and with a career catch rate of 65.6%, we could be looking at 85-95 catches and weekly PPR value.
Kirk’s ceiling is probably what he did in his first season with Jacksonville (84-1,108-8) and that stands to be valuable at where he is positioned in the hierarchy of the position in early fantasy rankings.
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With Kirk, Engram, and Travis Etienne positioned to see upwards of 60% of the targets in this offense, Lawrence’s fantasy floor increases a bit. The ceiling weeks will come when Davis gets loose (and it will happen, but projecting when it does it a near impossible task), but if Lawrence can improve his down weeks, he can threaten the top 12 at the position and is in the consideration to be a weekly starter.
I remain optimistic about this Jaguars offense as a whole, but I’m not going to change Davis’ value much as a result of this move. He remains a boom-or-bust Flex option that is great to roster and terrifying to play. That said, he will be a priority this draft season for me when it comes to filling out my roster, due to my faith in Lawrence and Davis’ clear path to being the featured deep target in this offense.