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Ray Davis will find the end zone often with the Buffalo Bills in 2024

Theo

With the 128th selection in the 2024 NFL Draft, the Buffalo Bills spent their fourth-round pick on running back Ray Davis. The former Kentucky Wildcat should immediately compete for a rotation role behind James Cook and provides an advantage over the aging veterans (Latavius ​​Murray, Leonard Fournette, Deonte Hardy) who have filled the hole over the past year and a half. Davis has plenty of college production and has a firm grasp on pass-catching duties out of the backfield.

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Ray Davis‘ Prospect profile

Ray Davis had a very interesting journey to college and put up huge numbers as a three-star recruit and No. 116 running back in the 2019 recruiting class. Starting at Temple as a true freshman year, Davis led the Owls in rushing, gaining 21.9% of the team’s total yards and 19.2% of the team’s total touchdowns. After two seasons with Temple and two more seasons at Vanderbilt – including an injury-shortened 2021 (toe) – he would play his senior year at Kentucky, where he torched SEC defenses for a total of 1,452 yards and 21 touchdowns .

With his performance in 2023, he became the first college player to rush for over 1,000 yards in three different FBS programs.

Ray Davis College career, 2019-2023
Year Attempts Rushed construction sites APJ Projects created after contact Targets Receptions Total TDs
2019 192 941 4.9 3.39 23 15 ten
2020 75 313 4.2 3.01 14 12 1
2021 44 211 4.8 3.39 5 5 1
2022 233 1,044 4.5 3.16 37 29 8
2023 197 1,131 5.7 3.81 39 32 21

Davis has won in a variety of ways on the football field and stands as one of the best all-around backs in this draft class. He already looks like a professional RB, showing patience and good footwork to allow things to evolve before hitting the hole.

He also showed a very good balance of power and contact, ranking sixth among draft-eligible running backs with 3.81 yards created after contact. At 5’8″, he is compactly built and runs aggressively through contact as if he were in a larger man’s body. This was on full display in Week 5 against Florida last year. last, when Davis touched the ball 27 times for 289 yards and four total touchdowns.

While Davis was a consistent runner, his speed isn’t visible on film, and his 4.52 40-yard dash and 1.62 10-yard split were just mediocre. He’s not a home run hitter like the other options in this draft class (Trey Benson, Jaylen Wright, Issac Guerendo), but he will be a great complementary back who shines in short yardage situations and shows a certain reception capacity. That’s exactly what the Buffalo Bills were looking for as James Cook enters his third year in the NFL.

How Ray Davis Suitable for invoices

Since the Bills allowed Devin Singletary to enter free agency, they have chosen from a whole list of available draft picks, including Damien Harris, Leonard Fournette and 34-year-old Latavius ​​Murray. The goal has been to give James Cook a break, especially around the goal line, where those three combined for 16 attempts last season. There was actually a stretch between Weeks 5 and 16 of ’23 in which Cook didn’t have a single goal-line rush, finishing with five total on the year.

The explosive running back also struggled to get up to speed in pass protection, where PFF ranked him 54th out of 57 qualifying running backs last year. This could very well be an area where Ray Davis could expand his role in year one, as he outweighs his new teammate by nearly 25 pounds despite the three-inch height difference.

It’s possible that former Lions sixth-round selection Ty Johnson (2019 NFL Draft) could stand in Davis’ way, but he was only active for seven games last season and had almost as many snaps on special teams (65) than in the backfield (71). According to Joe Buscaglia of The Athletic,

“The Bills hope Davis, their fourth-round pick, will bring what they’ve wanted to add to the group for years: power and short-yardage ability. It’s unclear exactly how big Davis’ role will be, but there’s a world in which he’s ahead of Johnson on the depth chart heading into the season.

Projecting the Bills Backfield in Fantasy Football

James Cook is clearly the Bills’ RB1, and the team made that clear when he got 290 opportunities (attempts plus targets) last season, even with his goal line role almost non-existent. The addition of Ray Davis appears to be an attempt to solidify their RB rotation into a two-headed monster, with Ty Johnson retaining his role on special teams.

This makes Cook a fantastic RB2, with the rookie remaining hungry behind him. Davis should be more effective with his touches than the veteran hodgepodge over the years, however. He still has pretty good touchdown equity, even if Josh Allen takes more than his fair share of scores. We’re sure to have a few scoring droughts, but Ray Davis should be considered at RB4/5 and would take much more of a workload than Johnson if Cook has injury hiccups throughout the year.

Conclusion

  • Ray Davis is a great fit for James Cook and the Bills offense and offers much more upside than their 2023 RB rotation.
  • It’s fair to question the current offensive environment with the recent passer turnover, but they haven’t ranked lower than 6th in offensive scoring over the last four years.
  • Davis will struggle to usurp a significant workload from Cook as long as they are both healthy, but the rookie should already have much of the short-yardage work, with the possibility of a third-down role more important as 2024 progresses. .
  • According to Underdog’s current best ball drafts, Davis leaves the board as the RB50 (161.4). I would prefer to be exposed to the better ball, as it will be easier to capture the peak weeks likely to occur along the goal line, and I believe the upside is captured at its current price. Cook remained in the RB12 range, and while I’m not worried about the rookie taking a ton of work off him, I’d like to grab him as a solidified RB2 when he falls into that range.

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