Jamin Davis showing good progress in third season

Breaking down the performance of LB Jamin Davis against the Eagles.

It’s fair to say that linebacker Jamin Davis hasn’t yet managed to live up to the expectations placed upon him when the Washington Commanders spent a first-round pick on him back in 2021. He struggled mightily in his rookie year and while he showed encouraging signs of development in his second season last year, he still wasn’t playing to the standard you would expect a first-round pick to play to, certainly not behind a defensive line as highly rated as Washington’s. 

Entering into his third year in the league, Davis has quietly gone under the radar. On the face of things, you might assume he’s not playing that well given that he’s not playing all the snaps. Free agent acquisition Cody Barton, who has struggled so far this season, is playing as the Mike linebacker and thus staying on the field every snap. When the Commanders go into a dime package with six defensive backs or their cinco package with five defensive lineman, there’s only room for one linebacker on the field and because Barton is the Mike and the Mike is the one that makes all the calls and adjustments, Davis has to stay on the sidelines. 

However, when Davis has been on the field, he’s been playing to a high level. He’s shown true growth and development compared to his rookie season and even last year. Now he’s obviously not perfect and still has the odd mistake here and there, but he’s very much turned a corner and is trending in the right direction. Before he was making lots of mistakes and flashed the occasional play that showed his potential. Now he’s making lots of plays that show his potential and only occasionally making mistakes. 

The core of his issues in his first two seasons in the league were in the run game. Davis was often tentative as a run defender. He was slow to read and diagnose plays, which made him late to fill his gap and resulted in him being caught on blocks or allowing lineman to climb up to the second level and reach him easily. He was also more of a finesse player that looked to work around blocks, which meant when he got caught on a block or had to take one on, he failed to have much impact. This season though, that is no longer the case. Against the Eagles this past Sunday, we saw a much different Jamin Davis.

Here we have a great example of how much quicker Davis is to read and react to runs and how much more physical he is when doing so. The Eagles run a counter scheme to their right, with the left guard pulling across to kick out the defensive end and the tight end following behind to wrap around and block the linebacker, which in this case is Davis. In his rookie year or even last season, Davis would have been slow to recognize this scheme and probably would have been blocked relatively easily, but now he reads it almost instantly. 

As soon as the ball is snapped, Davis triggers up towards the line of scrimmage. He spots the pulling guard and tight end as he triggers and knows exactly what is coming. He lets the guard work outside to the end and knows that he’s got to the line of scrimmage so quickly, he has a huge advantage over the pulling tight end. Davis uses that advantage by running head on into him and blowing up his block in the backfield. Not only does he stand up the tight end, he sheds the block instantly and peels off to tackle the running back trying to work outside of him. He wraps up the back and brings him down at about the line of scrimmage for no gain. 

We would have never seen that type of play from Davis against the run in his rookie year and even last year he never flashed a play quite as strong as that one. It wasn’t just a one off either. He’s been consistently strong against the run all season and had multiple stops in this game. 

This time the Eagles look to run the ball inside behind a couple of double teams. The left guard and left tackle work in combination to block defensive tackle John Ridgeway and the hope is that they can drive him back towards the linebacker and then one of them can peel off to pick up the linebacker. Hesitant linebacker play makes this very easy for the offensive lineman as they get extra time to secure the defensive tackle and drive him backwards before then peeling off to pick up the linebacker, and that was something Davis used to struggle with. Not now though. 

Davis is again quick to trigger on the run and attack his gap. He’s already engaging the left guard by the time the running back secures the hand off. If you look over to the other side of the line, you can see Barton does the opposite, holding back and allowing the center time to help secure the defensive tackle before peeling off and picking him up. The speed and aggressiveness with which Davis reads and reacts to this play makes  a huge difference. It allows him to make the block for the left guard so much more difficult and in the end, the guard can’t cut him off. Davis flies into the backfield and makes the tackle again for no gain. 

The contrast between Davis as a rookie and Davis this past Sunday is stark. As is the contrast between Davis and Barton currently. Barton appears to be where Davis was as a rookie, which is obviously disappointing for a key free agent signing that was brought in to replace a reliable veteran in Cole Holcomb. Hopefully Barton doesn’t take as long as Davis to get up to speed with this defense, but there were plays on Sunday that Barton looked like Davis as a rookie, which made Davis’ play stand out even more.