Bills wide receiver Gabe Davis on December 23, 2023, at SoFi Stadium.
General manager Brandon Beane must make some tough choices after the Buffalo Bills miss out on the Super Bowl for a record number of seasons.
One of the team’s top pending free agents is wide receiver Gabe Davis of the Buffalo Bills. Many in Buffalo bemoaned Davis’s failure to develop into a true wide receiver, which made him a divisive character. Still, he was a favorite in the locker room. Davis was elected team captain this past season, but he continued to play inconsistently.
According to Spotrac.com, the Bills’ fourth-round selection in the 2020 NFL Draft is expected to sign a four-year contract worth $54.4 million upon entering free agency. The Bills are almost $55 million over the salary cap going into the summer. And he made it clear that Davis’s stay in Buffalo was coming to an end.
Following the conclusion of the Bills’ postseason campaign, Davis stated that he wanted to remain in Buffalo. On January 22, in remarks to reporters, “I’m always open to returning.” Having played with the Bills for the previous four years, this is my first time here, Davis remarked.
Everything about Buffalo is something I adore. But once more, I feel like I have to go to March and look at the other choices as well because that’s the business side of things and I have to take advantage of it.
It’s possible that Davis and his agent have held preliminary contract talks with the Bills, and that Davis has realized the sides are sufficiently apart that he’ll be signing elsewhere when he becomes an unrestricted free agent next month, according to Pro Football Talk’s Michael Davis Smith, who saw his Instagram video.
Gabe Davis received criticism for the skewed statistics in his video.
Davis has included highlights from his time in Buffalo in his DVD. He caught 163 of 299 targets for 2,730 yards and 27 touchdowns in four years. With certain numbers at the end of the video, Davis seemed to be positioning himself as a legitimate WR1.
Davis broke the NFL playoff record two years ago when he caught four touchdowns against the Chiefs in the historic “13 seconds” collapse. That explosiveness, though, was sporadic at best. He recorded five games with no receptions in the 2023 campaign. According to The Athletic, his 5.1% drop percentage was the worst among Bills wide receivers.
Jared Dubin of CBS Sports offered his thoughts on how Davis overshadowed his significantly lower target percentage with his first-down, touchdown, and explosive reception rates.
Dubin wrote, “It’s probably important to note that those things are connected.” “One of the main reasons Davis had so many first downs and explosive plays when throwing the ball was his high average depth of target. It also clarifies why his catch percentage was 54.5% over the course of four seasons, never rising above 56.5% in a single season.
“It’s also important to note that, in the four years Davis has been in the NFL, his yards after catch average ranks 60th out of 91 receivers who have run 1,000 or more routes. Davis’ yards per route run average, according to Tru Media, ranks 50th out of these players.”
Prior to the playoffs, Gabe Davis sustained a knee injury.
Davis sustained a knee injury in the Bills’ regular-season finale, which prevented him from playing in the postseason. For a prospective free agent hoping to make an impression prior to free agency, this is a discouraging scenario.
To exacerbate the situation, a video featuring Davis arguing with supporters following the Bills’ loss to the Chiefs was uploaded on X. Put down the f***. A man yelled at Davis at Highmark Stadium, “You can’t even run a route right.” “Go the hell away from here.” While he is seen yelling back, the 25-year-old receiver’s voice is muffled.
Alana Davis, the mother of Davis, expressed her strong feelings about this regrettable encounter when the video became public. “Loser entitled fans acting like scumbags” was the label applied to the hecklers in a message that she retweeted. Her kid, she said, was defending kicker Tyler Bass, who had missed the game-winning field goal.
Alana detested the thought that Davis’s last recollections of Highmark Stadium would involve a brawl with supporters. “And to think it was probably his last night on that field 💔 and he was gutted he couldn’t be out there,” wrote Davis’ mother in a Facebook post. We didn’t like how it ended! Over the past four years, he gave it his all! EVERYTHING! Whatever the result, this rudeness is not to be tolerated.
