The Austin Davis File

Austin Davis, at Southern Miss on a baseball scholarship, walked onto the football team and broke Brett Farve's freshman records.  Later, he broke his other records despite missing 6 games as a sophomore to injury.

As a Senior, he broke all school records-several in his second game.  As a 15-point underdog in the Conference USA championship, he upset Case Keenum led Houston.

He beat Nevada in the Hawaii Bowl.  He's in the Missisippi Hall of Fame and was awarded the Conerly Trophy.

His overall stats: 61.1%, 10,898 yards, 83 tds, 27 interceptions, 460 rushes for 1,375 yards and 25 touchdowns.  He also caught two passes, one for a touchdown.

Why wasn't he drafted?  Level of competition, questions about his arm strength, and the system in which he played.

He was cast as a West Coast quarterback, because he excelled with short and intermediate passes, and had learned to use his second and third reads during his four years.

One analyst said that his arm strength increased as he went along, but that his ability to throw deep with accuracy in the NFL was a question mark.

As a Ram in 2013, he knocked off the Seattle Seahawks.  Brett Farve said he might be the next Brady or Werner.  Then he crashed and burned the next week.

Not uncommon, and that was two years ago.  Both starts count.  

He went 3-5 with the Rams last season, which says something.  Those Rams didn't have Todd Gurley.  That wasn't a great team.

ear Team G Att Comp Pct Att/G Yds Avg Yds/G TD TD% Int Int% Lng 20+ 40+ Sck SckY Rate
2015 Cleveland Browns 1 10 7 70.0 10.0 77 7.7 77.0 1 10.0 0 0.0 42T 1 1 1 8 125.8
2014 St. Louis Rams 10 284 180 63.4 28.4 2,001 7.0 200.1 12 4.2 9 3.2 59T 21 4 29 179 85.1
2013 St. Louis Rams 0 -- -- -- 0.0 -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 0.0
2012 St. Louis Rams 0 -- -- -- 0.0 -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 0.0
TOTAL 11 294 187 63.6 26.7 2,078 7.1 188.9 13 4.4 9 3.1 59 22 5 30 187 86.5

As we saw on Monday, Davis has an NFL arm, and has had four years to prepare.

I never paid attention to him until now, but I'm glad Ray Farmer did.  As usual, the third string guy was dismissed as ever becoming a viable starter by everybody else, and I never checked him out.  My bad.

What we see above are some rather dry and unspectacular statistics.  He completed 63+ % of his passes as a Ram, threw 12 tds and 9 picks, had a respectable yards per completion, and threw almost all of his passes under 20 yards.

Not great, but not bad either.  He should be better now than he was then.  How much better, who can say?  And against the Bengals defense, probably playing from behind, well...I will pray for him.

We haven't scratched the surface on this guy yet.  What we saw looked terrific.  I don't think he'll crash and burn again this time, but don't know.

I do know that he's earned this opportunity.  That's good for Mike, because he's painted himself into a corner with Johnny.  He didn't dare start him again so soon after punishing him like that.  The permabashers would all say it was a token punishment and Mike is soft and stuff.

McCown's injury was almost predictable.  Nuff said.

I hope Austin Davis takes over and kicks butt.  I believe Manziel will become a very good or great quarterback, but Davis's success would force him to work even harder.  Competition is good.  And now that I've checked the kid out, I can't count him out.  Wouldn't it be great if, entering 2016, the Browns have too many starting quarterbacks?  What's that...The Twilight Zone theme I'm hearing?

Mike wants Davis to succeed and save his job.  Ray wants people to point to this guy he found that nobody else wanted.

That might have been the thinking for resigning Terrelle 
Pryor.

Pryor has played too long in the NFL to qualify for a practice squad.  This is one key reason nobody else signed him.

He was deemed not ready to contribute as a wide receiver (or H-Back) at this point, and he'd take up one of the 48 slots.

I normally don't buck the much more qualified pros in NFL coaching and personnel, but with Terelle Pryor, I think everybody who didn't sign him was wrong.

As it stands, he may be the emergency quarterback.  Johnny is second string by default.  Ray and Mike can justify holding onto Pryor this way.

I hope they also use him as a receiver.  Like I said, even if he's not ready for the whole route tree yet, he can read coverage and has everybody trying to cover him outgunned in every way.

I mean, why not?  What's left to lose?

Anyway, good luck Austin!