PicoBlog

An under the radar signing by the Washington Commanders during their busy free agency period was cornerback Michael Davis. Davis went undrafted back in 2017, catching on with the Chargers as an undrafted free agent, where he worked his way up the ladder into a starting cornerback. The 29-year-old Davis played eight seasons with the Chargers where at times he’s looked like one of the top press corners in the league and at other times he really struggles. He has had a tendency to fluctuate his performance levels from season to season, with strong years in 2020 and 2022, but down years in 2021 and 2023. 

So what exactly are the Commanders getting in Davis? Well the 6-foot-2, 195 pound corner is a long, physical press cornerback. At the owners meetings this week, Dan Quinn restated his desire to be more aggressive, send more blitzes and play more man coverage and Davis is someone that fits that style perfectly. While the system he played in for the last few years was zone-based, he was routinely asked to play press man coverage.

The Chargers have been known as a quarters coverage team for the past few years under Brandon Staley, but a lot of quarters coverage systems actually have checks to man coverage for individual corners. When an offense lines up in a three by one formation, the corner isolated to the single receiver side will often be tasked with playing man coverage without any help, allowing the rest of the unit to rotate to the other side of the field. The Chargers routinely had Davis align to that single receiver side on purpose, trusting him to lock down receivers one-on-one and allowing the rest of the coverage to roll to the other side of the field. By being put in those situations so often, Davis developed a physical play style to help him jam and disrupt receivers in man coverage to make quarterbacks work to the other side of the field. 

Here are some examples of Davis playing physical press coverage. On the first play of this clip, Davis is isolated to the right of the formation against Packers wide receiver Christian Watson. Watson is a big receiver at 6-foot-4, but Davis has no worries about lining up in press and being physical against a bigger receiver. At the snap of the ball, Davis steps with his inside foot towards Watson and lands a strong punch to his chest, stunning the receiver and taking away any chance to release inside. That forces Watson outside, where Davis again gets hands on him to force him wider. Watson gets forced well outside the numbers and breaks off his route to come back to the ball, but Davis is in great position to match him and take his route away, forcing the quarterback to throw elsewhere.

On the second play of the clip, Davis lines up against Dolphins star receiver Tyreek Hill. Like we saw in the first play of the clip, Davis plays aggressively at the snap, stepping towards Hill and landing a strong punch to disrupt his release. Hill wants to release inside but gets jammed, so attempts ot adjust back outside. Davis stays with him and keeps his hands on the receiver, staying physical and continually disrupting his release. This causes Hill to stumble and fall over. By the time he gets back up, the ball is already thrown to another receiver. 

On the third play of the clip, we see Davis matchup against Dolphins tight end Durham Smythe. Smythe has an even bigger frame than Watson at 6-foot-6, 246 pounds, but again Davis doesn’t back down. This time Davis doesn’t go so aggressively at the snap, in part because the alignment is so tight that the edge rusher is too close and could get in his way. So instead. Davis allows Smythe to declare his release inside before then getting his hands on him. Once Smythe works inside, Davis plays physical but not illegally so, and uses his body and positioning to force Smythe off his route and push him further and further inside. Smythe wants to fake a crossing route before pivoting back outside on a sail route, but Davis forces him too far inside for the fake across the middle to cause any problems. Smythe has to give up on the fake and try his best to get back outside, but Davis sticks tightly to him and takes the route away. 

Those three clips show Davis working against three different body types, but going up and playing physical press coverage against all three without any issues. By playing so physical at the line of scrimmage, Davis makes it tough for receivers he’s working against to win routes quickly underneath. 

One of the most common ways NFL teams like to attack quarters coverage teams is to isolate a receiver to one side of the formation, force the defense to check into man coverage on that side and then run a quick slant into all the space on that side of the field. That’s precisely what the Cowboys try to do to Davis here with receiver Michael Gallup. But while this tactic works against a lot of corners that typically play quarters, Davis is far more suited to playing man coverage. He gets up on the line of scrimmage and looks to play physical press coverage as we saw previously. He stays patient at the snap, allowing Gallup to fake his release outside before declaring his actual intentions with a break inside before then getting his hands on the receiver. Once he initiates contact, Davis disrupts Gallup’s route and attaches himself to Gallup’s hip. From that position, he can then look to the backfield and spot the ball being thrown. He undercuts the route and breaks up the pass before Gallup has a chance to catch it. 

While Davis is physical and can disrupt routes underneath, he also has the long speed to stay with routes down the field too. 

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