Receiver Corey Davis Leads Titans in Targets in Week One Debut

The Tennessee Titans have never had a dynamic, game-changing wide receiver since their move to Nashville. It’s true — think about it. Drew Bennett, Derrick Mason, Nate Washington, Kendall Wright, Kenny Britt (that’s a really sad list) all showed us some flashes of some sort, but none really had to ability to carry an offense.

Corey Davis has a chance to change all of that. The 2017 5th overall pick was favorite of mine from the beginning. Yesterday he began to validate that opinion.

In his first live game action, Davis was targeted ten times. He converted six of those opportunities for 69 yards. His first ever catch in the NFL was a memorable one too. Watch him go up and get this one over the head of David Amerson.

NFL Gamepass

To see Davis do this during one of his first ever snaps in the league is so encouraging. The Titans just haven’t had a guy that can go get the ball like this consistently.

Davis wasn’t quite the best receiver on the field yet for the Titans. That honor still goes to Rishard Matthews, who I thought played a really tough game over the middle of the field. But Davis wasn’t too far behind in his first career NFL game.

You did see a couple of examples of Davis and Mariota not being on the same page. Mularkey’s comments after the game seemed to suggest that Davis may have ended up in the wrong spot. “He got a lot of plays, a lot of things to learn, but there were some things that were not on track just because lack of time,” Mularkey said.

He played 66 percent of the snaps after missing all of preseason with a hamstring injury, which is about what Mike Mularkey said that he would do. I’ll be interested to see if the Titans stick with more of a three receiver base like they did in this one, or go back to more of their traditional two receiver sets. One of Davis, Decker or Matthews would have to come off of the field for that to happen, though. Tough call.

I’ve been preaching patience with this offense since the very beginning. That remains the case. You can’t just throw a rookie receiver into the mix and not expect some bumps in the road. The same can be said for Eric Decker, despite the fact that he’s a veteran. Those two need time to get comfortable with the system and Marcus Mariota, which is something that they weren’t able to accomplish in the preseason.

As I said on the MCM podcast last week, I think the Titans start slow — and you might see more examples of that this weekend. But I do think they figure things out down the road.