Green Bay Packers: Is Trevor Davis this year’s big sleeper?

Out of all of the members of the California Golden Bears 2015 offense not-named “Jared Goff”, I would never have guessed that Trevor Davis would be the first of them off the board. Kenny Lawler? Sure. My favorite RB sleeper Daniel Lasco? Maybe. Heck, I didn’t even think Davis would go before tight end Stephen Anderson, who signed with the Houston Texans as an undrafted free agent.

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Lawler and Lasco would join the Seattle Seahawks and New Orleans Saints as seventh-round picks, while the less-touted Trevor Davis heard his name called in the fifth round of the NFL Draft, joining a Green Bay Packers team that is loaded with intriguing young wide receivers.

Look up any of the handful of scouting reports on Davis, who received little pre-draft coverage after being overshadowed by several of his teammates in Sonny Dykes’s offense, and they all talk about how great of a kick returner he is.

Don’t believe me? Check out this quote that NFL.com’s Lance Zierlein passed along from an unnamed NFC West scout, “He’s a pretty good returner. I don’t see him being drafted, but he could make a team as a return man and last receiver on the depth chart.”

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I’m sure a number of NFC North scouts disagree with that assessment, because no team drafts a return specialist in the fifth round of the draft, especially since kick-off returns are so rare following the rule changes designed to minimize the amount of severe injuries that result from these plays.

Yes, that curtails Davis’s value, but it honestly seems like we never valued Davis appropriately to begin with. Not to be holier-than-thou, I will readily admit that I largely neglected Davis as a viable NFL prospect during the pre-draft process, and if the Packers didn’t draft him in the fifth round, I wouldn’t have even given him a second thought.

Well, here we are now, talking about another surprising Packers WR pick that involves them drafting an explosive Pac-12 return specialist a few rounds earlier than expected. And yes, I am alluding to 2015 rookie Ty Montgomery, who caught over 78% of the passes thrown at him with 218 kick-off return yards in just six appearances.

Unlike Davis, who transferred to Cal after two off-the-radar seasons under Norm Chow at Hawaii, Montgomery was a big name in college football. And yet, if you look at the Combine numbers, you can convince yourself that Davis has more natural talent and upside in this league.

When comparing their workout numbers and measurables, Montgomery tops Davis in just two categories: the vertical and the 20-yard shuttle. Since Davis has a 38-inch vertical and a shuttle time that is just one-hundredth of a second behind Montgomery’s mark, neither of those are nearly as telling as Davis’s advantages in the 40, three-cone drill, and 60-yard shuttle.

Taking a look back at our coverage of Davis before his selection in the fifth round, it’s baffling to recall that a top performer at the wide receiver position in the 40, vertical (38.5 inches is nothing to sneeze at), three-cone drill, and 60-yard shuttle was viewed as a consensus undrafted free agent with almost nobody contemplating his potential upside. This is especially alarming when you consider that many wide receivers were criticized for testing worse than expected in this class, so Davis should have garnered more attention.

On the surface, the Packers have scooped up an undervalued wide receiver from a production standpoint who may have been under-utilized by his own college team. After all, Davis spent just two seasons with Cal, averaging over 16 yards per reception in both seasons with seven touchdowns on 64 catches with the Golden Bears.

Judging by his Combine numbers, Davis is the type of player who can win in contested situations, get open underneath with his quickness, win at the intermediate level, and even test defenses vertically. Davis is raw, yes, but maybe that perceived rawness has more to do with collegiate role in a spread-it-around offense?

Again, this is a guy who tested off-the-charts in several different Combine metrics, and he’ll be joining an offense run by a quarterback who can take advantage of any athletic trait. Not sure? Just look at how he turned a non-rosterable NFL player like Jarrett Boykin into a moderately useful player, accentuating Boykin’s strengths (he shined on the bench and in the 60-yard shuttle as a draft prospect).

Expectations for rookie receivers should always be tempered, but Davis has a chance to forge a role. Davante Adams was beyond awful last season, as he took steps back from a seemingly encouraging rookie campaign that, in hindsight, may have been overrated by zealous NFL writers, such as yours truly. Jeff Janis and Montgomery are worth watching, and Jared Abbrederis lurks with his route-running chops.

Oh, and I heard Aaron Rodgers likes guys who can win in contested situations. Pro tip: Click on the GIFs to expand them in a new tab.

Maybe he never develops as a route-runner and ends up being a reach pick, but there are many reasons to be optimistic. Firstly, he’s a great athlete. He’s an incredible athlete in multiple senses of the word, Rodgers must have seen something he liked out of the fellow Cal alumn, and it isn’t a stretch to think that he could be an upgrade over Adams or Abbrederis, with one of the two likely being expendable in training camp as a result of this selection.

Davis is a surprise pick, but maybe we were the ones who got it wrong. Well, not all of us neglected the man, because The Draft Wire’s Jon Ledyard, who very well could be the best in the draft analyst business, slapped him with a fifth-round grade, writing that “his best football could be ahead of him”.

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Judging by how little attention he garnered before the Packers picked him up, that shouldn’t be difficult for Davis to accomplish. The Packers had success on a second round #athlete named Randall Cobb back in 2011, and Davis tested as a significantly better athlete across the spectrum. Obviously, Cobb is one of the NFL’s top 20 wide receivers, but I bring him up as a reminder that, yes, the Packers know what they are doing at the wide receiver position, even if you think Adams has been nothing but a massive dud through two seasons.