Jamal Davis – Akron – Edge: Davis is an athletic Edge Defender with a slim tapered build and long arms. Looks like an NBA wing player with the same type of athletic prowess. He was a monster at the combine. He measured in at 6’3″ 243 so he is a tad underweight. That’s a big concern because he doesn’t appear to have the frame to add more than 5-7 pounds more and maintain his athleticism.
He is very long with 34 1/4″ arms and big 10 1/4″ hands. He is very fast running a 4.6 40 at nearly 250 lbs. He also benched 19 reps showing nice upper body strength with long arms. Ran a 7 flat 3-cone and an above average short shuttle at 4.44. He also showed plenty of explosion with a 39″ vert. and a 10′ 5″ broad jump.
He shows those athletic scores translate on the football field when he wants it to. Sometimes his engine can run cold showing a bit of a tendency to loaf once the play runs away from his side. Looks like a bit of a glory seeker trying to make big plays for self glorification rather than making the right play or sacrifice for the team at times. However, when he’s motivated to make a play it’s nearly impossible to stop him from doing so.
Davis has a lightning quick inside move as a counter. Not much of a bull rusher but does play off a bull rush with counters to get free and get around Offensive Tackles and Tight Ends. Decent hand fighter but can use some refinement in this area. Below, you’ll see the GIFs I used to show all of the things I discussed above.
Effort/Motor:
On this play, you see some of the negatives in Davis’ game. Here, he is clearly loafing on a play. He initially shows his quickness jumping inside but after the Wide Receiver beats him on the jet sweep to the outside he quickly throttles down to a slow jog rather than turning on the Jets in pursuit to make a play downfield.
In this GIF, you can see Davis’ speed off the corner as he puts pressure on the Gamecock’s Quarterback.
On this play, Davis makes a spin move and shows some toughness staying stout on the interior to help make a stuff on the run play.
On this play, Davis shows his bend around the Edge forcing a pressure leading into a turnover in the form of a pick.
Here, Davis shows off his ridiculous closing speed getting on the Quarterback faster than he expected forcing him to throw it away before getting sacked.
This GIF is Davis in a nutshell. He is not a 100 percenter. He’ll pick and choose his spots to go full out. On the first play, Davis gets double teamed and gives up. On the next play, he actually gets a good power rush on than gets a double team when the center comes over at the last minute. He than powers through in Between both blockers while getting pressure on the Quarterback ultimately resulting in a pick. The second pressure resulting in a pick in this game by the way showing that he will make game changing plays.
On this play, you see Davis a part of yet another takeaway. He may not have directly caused it but when the opportunity was there he pounced on it, literally and figuratively, showing off his cat like quickness. He actually closes more ground to the ball then the Quarterback who was much closer to it.
Here is that spin move I mentioned in my intro section. Lightning quick and just about un-blockable. He spins so quickly he actually flings himself to the turf but recovers quickly and gets the sack.
Davis is a hard one to put a draft value on. His effort and physicality says late round flier but his ability is elite. Blue chip type talent. On 70% of his snaps he may do nothing. Just there, occupying space showing amazing disinterest. Oh, but those 30% snaps. Davis will give you some big game changing type plays.
If you can stomach the low effort plays in order to get those 3-4 big plays a game this is your guy. Now, in a rotation having to earn snaps in order to get that big money contract his effort level may improve as well as his big play percentage rising. Davis may be a good value mid-round pick as a situational pass rushing edge. If he shows dedication in the weight room and takes playing the run more seriously he may increase his snap total to an even larger percentage thus stacking up more value.
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