Green Bay Packers: Rookie report entering final stretch of season
By Kenn Korb
Trevor Davis
Towards the beginning of the season, Davis had flashes of being a new, explosive element for the Packers. Part of that was the myriad snaps he got with the offense, but he emerged as a threat to pull of big returns in the punt return game (none bigger than the 55-yarder vs. the Falcons).
His season changed the week following that Atlanta contest, however. In the game versus Tennessee, he went back for a punt but ended up muffing it to give the Titans the ball right back in the midst of an early blowout.
Since then, he’s been completely phased out. The next week, Randall Cobb took over his punt return duties, and those few opportunities he did see lined up as receiver have vanished entirely.
The receiving corps is no longer dealing with the same number of injuries they did at times earlier in the year, so there are more reliable options for the Packers to send out there. Even when they decide to bring in someone outside of the usual Jordy Nelson/Cobb/Davante Adams trio, it has been Jeff Janis and Geronimo Allison being tabbed for the 10 or so snaps left to go around.
Meanwhile, Cobb is showing himself to be a more reliable and consistent option in the return game. He not only gives more of an assurance that something catastrophic will not happen, but he has more often given Green Bay decent return attempts as well. Just two weeks ago he added in two different ones which eclipsed 20 yards, and he picked up another 10-yarder against Washington.
The margin for error has been next to nothing for the Packers for a few weeks now, and the way they’ve turned to not using Davis is emblematic of the decisions the team has had to make to divert the possibility of back-breaking plays adversely damaging what chances they have left.
Unless we see them drop completely from the playoff competition — at this point, it would take losses in the next two weeks to do so — we likely won’t see any more of Davis in 2016.