LA Chargers: Three players that are getting massively overlooked

3. Michael Davis

If you read my recent article, ‘LA Chargers: Michael Davis is the reason the team didn’t draft a corner‘ then you already know the point I am going to get at here.

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Heading into the 2020 NFL Draft, one of the biggest perceived draft needs was another outside cornerback who could play alongside Casey Hayward with Chris Harris being in the slot. Even I bit into the narrative and took a deeper look at the numbers to see why a cornerback made sense in the draft.

It was shocking when the team did not select a cornerback, with many fans wondering why that was the case. Upon looking further into it, I found the answer in someone I admittedly was even overlooking: Michael Davis.

Davis has his flaws. He committed four pass interferences last season along with two holding penalties in 68 percent of the defensive snaps. That was an issue for the team at times last season, but it is something that can easily be coached up and worked through with experience.

With Hayward on the outside and Harris in the slot, the thing the Chargers need most in that CB2 is speed, and Davis has just that. Davis ran a 4.34 40-yard dash and held his own against some trailblazers last season, including Tyreek Hill.

In fact, when you look at his advanced metrics, Davis was actually pretty solid for the Chargers last season. Per Player Profiler, Davis allowed, on average, just 0.70 yards of separation on throws that were targeted his way, the eighth-lowest in the NFL.

He also ranked second in yards per reception allowed (8.4) and fifth in yards per target allowed (5.5). His +2.0 coverage rating was the 40th-best in the league.

Will Davis be a lockdown corner that is a Pro Bowler? Not at all. But as the third-most talented corner on a team that has a stout secondary around him, he is going to be more that capable of holding his own.