The Importance of Fred Davis, and who he Best Compares to

If the quality of our defense this year hinges on the ability of young, yet embattled CB DeAngelo Hall, then the key to the Redskins offense this year is not a member of the much-criticized offensive line, it's second year Tight End Fred Davis.In doing our player expectation projections last week, it was obvious that Davis' spot on the chart is the one area where there's really no one else to pick up the slack if he falters. If Malcolm Kelly is too hurt to play, there's Devin Thomas, or even Roydell Williams. If Santana Moss can't dominate, his production can conceivably be spread amongst the rest of the receivers, and Campbell can still hit his numbers.Well, if Davis isn't one of the most productive second TEs in the league, then that's coming straight out of Jason Campbell's production. This isn't to say that the entire receiver corps doesn't also need to improve from last year to help Campbell--clearly they do--but Davis himself is the backup number one possession target, and there's no one behind him.The bar on Davis has been set at 3 receiving TDs, and 320 receiving yards. However, this is merely a personal gut feeling that may detract from the greater point; Davis isn't competing against Chris Cooley, he's competing with him. Between them, the Redskins need to get 100 receptions and 1,000 yards of production, the golden number that suggests the passing offense is where it needs to be at the end of the regular season.That sounds like a lot, but we can look at other recent TD duos who have hit that total, and then we will wrap up by looking at the effect of the tight ends on their total offense.Greg Olsen and Desmond Clark, 2008 Chicago BearsThese guys were both brought in with the idea of complementing one another, and though neither one had a great year individually, they combined for 941 yards and 6 TDs. This is a bare minimum expectation for the Cooley/Davis duo this year.Tony Sheffler and Daniel Graham, 2008 Denver BroncosSheffler is an excellent player, as good a tight end as anyone in the AFC, including Antonio Gates. His 16.1 yard average brings a vertical element to the offense that few tight ends do, including Chris Cooley, so this comparison isn't particularly transferrable to the Redskins.Graham though, is on a 5-year contract worth 30 million dollars, solely to be a second TE. So far, so good though for the Broncos. Graham is catching 64% of passes thrown in his direction, he's averaging 28 catches a year since coming over to the Broncos, and he's averaging 3 TD's a year. All while being one of the stronger blocking TEs around. Hey, that's what we want from Fred Davis! Well, we want that at a small fraction of the price.Jason Witten and Martellus Bennett, 2008 Dallas CowboysHey, we play these guys! Witten is the prototype of the ideal NFL TE today, but Bennett was taken a few picks after Fred Davis last year, and he's the reigning "best 2nd TE in the NFL" from a year ago. All that really did was prove that Vinny was onto something when he took Davis in the 2nd round with a previously established TE. Or that Jerry Jones is both 1) crazy, and 2) lucky. Then that wouldn't say anything for Vinny.Bo Scaife and Alge Crumpler, 2008 Tennessee TitansScaife played under the RFA tender last year, and he was good enough to earn the franchise tag last year, obviously, the guy has number one TE stuff. Think of Crumpler as Daniel Graham without all the hoopla, because public majority opinion appears to be that Michael Vick created him, not the other way around. Crumpler was also significantly less productive than the rest of the No. 2 TEs, so Davis should complement Cooley better than Crumpler complements Scaife.Dallas Clark and Ben Utecht, 2007 Indianapolis ColtsDallas Clark is a close Cooley comparable, but of course the Colts ask him to play a very different game than the Redskins ask of Cooley, and Clark tends to compile stronger numbers on a yearly basis than Cooley, despite being a similar player. That's fine, the difference is in the identity of the organizations. Ben Utecht was seen as highly replaceable talent after his notable 2007 season, so the Colts let him walk uncompensated to the Bengals as an RFA. Revisionist history proved the Colts correct on the replaceability of Utecht, but also unable to actually find a suitable replacement in their own offense.Tony Sheffler and Daniel Graham, 2007 Denver BroncosThese guys, again? Maybe I should have renamed this article, "Create your Own Jay Cutler." Jason Campbell already has the proper initials, and a similar statistical profile according to QB rating. Now, all he needs are the production from the tight ends.Kellen Winslow Jr. and Steve Heiden, 2006 Cleveland BrownsWinslow did not play in 2005, with a bout of "motorcycle stupidity", so his effective NFL debut saw him team up with one of the league's better blockers to become part of a dynamic tight end duo. Winslow by and far led the pack, and would take his game to new heights in 2007, but this year he would split the credit with Heiden. This was before the dynamic TE duo became trendy, and it's clear that their skill sets complemented each others very well. Chris Cooley and Robert Royal, 2005 Washington RedskinsWho the heck is Robert Royal?*looks up his stats*Whoa, this guy is pretty much terrible.ConclusionsFred Davis is already better than Robert Royal.Conclusions, non-Rob Royal VersionThe combined record of the 8 teams I listed above with dynamic TE duos comes out to 73-55, a win percentage of .570, between 9-7 and 10-6. This is seemingly all those teams have in common, so clearly, the effect is tangible, if maybe a bit misleading.But lets take a look at just these offenses, by Off. DVOA (in chronological order): 5.0%, -18.5%, 23.8%, 7.6%, 10.2%, 21.0%, 8.5%, -4.3%. The same data, using only Pass Off. DVOA: 7.9%, -18.0%, 16.7%, 43.2%, 10.2%, 24.2%, 8.3%, -2.4%. The outliers are the 2007 Colts and 2008 Broncos on the high end, and the 2006 Browns on the low end.The average offense with a dynamic TE duo--once the outliers are pulled--averages 5.4% better than average in offensive DVOA, and 8.1% better than average in Pass Offense DVOA.It doesn't take a numbers breakdown to suggest that teams with two valuable TEs are, on the average, better offenses than without them over the past four years. Clearly, the fact that a Fred Davis breakout would help the Redskins offense is pretty indisputable. But I hope I've shown just how much of an effect it makes.All the quarterbacks that threw to these TE duos, which includes: Mark Brunell, Charlie Frye, Peyton Manning, Jay Cutler, Kerry Collins, Kyle Orton, and Tony Romo, all of them except Manning and Romo enjoyed the best seasons of their career with those respective franchises in the year which they had a TE duo. There were some extenuating circumstances around Romo, injury and mostly that his WRs were terrible, and Manning had a great year in 2007, just not quite as great by Manning standards. But the correlation is clear that when a QB has two TEs that he can trust, he does disproportionately better than when he does not.