All-Twenty Tuesday: Bucs CB Carlton Davis

“It’s a mold; a weapon fit for a king.”

As we discussed on the previous page, the kind of player Auburn’s Carlton Davis, the third of three Bucs’ second-round picks, is uncommon around these Tampa Bay waters. At 6-foot-1, 205 pounds, Davis is a big, long cornerback who wins with physicality and length.

In high school, not only was Davis one of the top 25 recruits in the state, hailing from Miami, Fla., but he was also a very accomplished track athlete as he was a district 100- and 200-meter dash finalist. In 2015, Davis got playing time right away for the Tigers, earning Freshman All-SEC honors after starting nine games with 56 tackles, two tackles for loss, led the team with three interceptions and eight passes defended. After a sophomore year that stunted some of his progression due to injury, Davis was a first-team All-SEC selection in 2017 after starting 13 games. He had 36 tackles, one interception and led Auburn with 11 passes broken up.

“You talk about long corners with the ability to play press coverage, this is your guy. When you draw it up, this is what it looks like. An impressive specimen. (He’s) best when he redirects at the line-of-scrimmage,” NFL Network analyst Mike Mayock said. “I thought he struggled to find the ball in the air with his back to the quarterback. However, he can run and when he opens those hips and moves, it’s pretty impressive for a big guy. My only two issues with him A) Can you find the ball? and B) He was an impressive big-hit tackler, but not always a consistent tackler.”

Getting right into it, Davis’ best attribute is his length – something you can’t teach, which does go a long way, especially when the team he’s been drafted to has ignored the fact that size in the secondary is a good thing for way too long. Remember on the previous page when I said drafting a small cornerback is like putting yourself behind the eight ball, starting your secondary scheme on an uphill climb? Well, Davis is the opposite. Davis is starting the situation as good as you can with his intangibles and you hope the rest can match.

The play above is a bread and butter look for Davis. In it, he was lined up close to the line of scrimmage, which allowed him to be physical with the receiver since it was within the first five yards of the play, and by being physical he was already in the receiver’s back pocket when the ball arrived and was able to get his long arms out to knock the ball away. This is also a reason why Davis led the Tigers in passes broken up in two out of the three years he was a starter.

The play directly above is actually from a different game in which Davis played against Texas A&M, but the result, as you can see, was the same.

Scheming a defense that allows your cornerbacks – who hopefully have been drafted and fit to play this – to play in close coverage or press coverage allows yourself a chance in pass defense. This is what all the best defenses do in the modern era of the NFL. There are too many Julio Joneses, Michael Thomases and too many Devin Funchess-like receivers (notice all are in the NFC South) to play exclusively off coverage. Not only is the big cushion often extremely predictable, receivers are rarely challenged for the ball. You have to be able to contest catches with wide receivers and Davis makes his living off of that.

Does close coverage always work? No, it’s not a sure-fire thing. But, the goal, as a defense, is to make things as challenging for an offense as you can, hopefully yielding mistake or, at the least, demanding perfection to move the ball against your defense. When you play off coverage, you get to keep everything in front of you, which is good damage control when you don’t trust your safeties (which is another topic about the previous Bucs defense that I’ve griped about), but playing off also allows for the easiest plays against you and higher completion percentages from opposing quarterbacks. When you play off coverage, the receivers might not be able to go deep, but they can run slants, they can run screens, and they can cause more confusion in zones.

When you play close coverage, you’re going to see more touch throws and more fade throws like the ones above, which some receivers in the NFL are good at, but those are also the more difficult plays. You’re giving the defense the harder option. Even with the pass being underthrown in the clip above, Davis was all over the receivers, by design, and because of that he forced a more difficult throw. It’s not just about being tall or being long as a defensive back. When you have the types of players who give you the option to play close and press, you allow yourself to be a defense that forces a high degree of difficulty on an offense.

The advantages of having length as a cornerback aren’t exclusive to close coverage. At some point, all cornerbacks are asked to play off coverage. In fact, you sort of hope so because that likely means you’re winning the game late in the contest and are selling out to contain big plays. In the play above, Davis (No. 6) was playing far off the line of scrimmage. But, he was able to read and react to the quarterback and adjusted well enough to jump in and bat the ball away with his long arms.

That’s a nice visual of how Davis can fit in with Tampa Bay’s current scheme, if plugged in as such, since we know they won’t totally get rid of off coverage in 2018. Although Smith hopefully adjusts to being more aggressive than what he’s called in the past.

A subtly of Davis’ game that I really appreciate is how active his hands are. Davis gives up some catches here and there (remember, there’s a reason he wasn’t seen as a first round pick with his length and mentality), but even when he does, he’s technically sound in his hand placement and doesn’t give up when trying to force an incompletion, even after the ball arrives. Davis has plenty of examples just like the one above where it looks like a clear catch is about to happen, but he had his hands in between or around the receiver’s hands at the catch point because of his length, and was able to pop the ball loose. That might appear to be something lucky, but when you watch his tape you see him do it all the time and instead realize that’s a cheeky skill of his.

Davis’ active hands aren’t just involved in the passing game, either.

Davis had three forced fumbles in his three-year career at Auburn (distributed evenly at one each year for all you OCD stats people out there), but I’m actually surprised it wasn’t more due to plays like the one above. In plays like that one, it’s like Davis’ hands are magnetically attracted to the ball, which is sort of ironic because when it’s in the air and he has the chance to catch it he fails at that more that you’d expect. Davis is constantly trying to dislodge the ball from a ball carrier whether that’s in a catching motion or they’re running up the field.

And, as shown in the play above, Davis isn’t just softly putting his hand into a ball carrier to try to get the ball out; he’s swiping and punching any chance he can. Turnovers are a big thing for defensive backs. Yes, the ultimate compliment is for the ball to not be thrown your way because your coverage is so good (example: Jalen Ramsey at Florida State his final year), but eventually the ball is going to come your way, and the easiest way to stick around as a defensive back is if you’re getting your hands on it for good. Davis struggles to get interceptions, at times, but I think he makes up for that a bit by having the mentality to force fumbles like we saw above.

In some final points about Davis, I want to reference the video above. There are some highlight reel plays of Davis making very nice interceptions during his Auburn career. Many of them are with violence and athleticism when jumping a route or wrestling a ball away. But, in between those picks are some plays that don’t make Davis look as natural securing the ball in the air.

Watch the video of him above at the Combine. As you get to the drills portion, you see him drop some easy passes, and even in the gauntlet that he ran through, he let the ball get into his body and even had a drop because he’s nervous. If he doesn’t have the confidence to go out and catch a ball with his arms full extended, they’re basically useless, in that regard. Anyone can catch a ball with their chest.

That’s the number one thing Davis has to work on at the next level, and sometimes there’s only so much you can do. You can spend hours on the JUGGS machine catching passes, but if it’s not natural for you in the moment, it won’t make that much of a difference. The reason Davis wasn’t a first-round cornerback is because when it comes to ball skills with takeaways, he’s been sketchy. That’s the part you’re betting on.

The last part of Davis’ game I want to highlight is something you can also notice from the Combine video, but in a good way this time, and that is Davis’ ability to flip his hips so quick and so sooth with his big body.

In the two clips above, Davis showed good fluidity when covering the Georgia receiver at the boundary. As you can see, at the snap, Davis was playing close to the line of scrimmage in man coverage. Davis not only did a good job of chopping his feet as the wide receiver began to stutter step to try to keep Davis guessing, but once the receiver tipped his hand to where his was going, Davis was able to totally flip his hips to that direction.

Watch each play a few times to really see it. The snap, the quick feet movement, then boom! Davis’ hips explode to open up and he’s already in a side step and into his stride with no wasted movement. That’s a quality that is often prioritized with smaller cornerbacks because they have less body to move, but when a big cornerback can do it, it’s special.

I started this section off with a quote from the move Avengers Infinity War. “It’s a mold; a weapon fit for a king.” That’s what I think Davis is. He breaks the mold of the previous Bucs’ cornerbacks.

Right now he has the mold of a defensive piece (weapon) that can be used at the highest level. He’s big, tall, long, can run well, can chop his feet well, can flip his hips like a smaller corner and has very active hands. Plus he’s supremely confident and the mentality of a guy who hates to lose. Davis has the mold to be just what the Bucs have needed for years, but that mold has to fill out to become a weapon. Davis is going to need time, dedication, good focus and coaching to become the complete outside cornerback his body and his athleticism gives him the potential to be.

But, make no mistake, the mold is there.