Dom Davis and Other Tales of Woe

One of the more under­rated half backs over the last three sea­sons has been Texan’s run­ner Doman­ick Davis. In 2003, as a rookie, he ran for almost 1000 yards, added another 200 receiv­ing yards, and crossed the goal line eight times…in 10 games. Not bad for a third rounder on a infant organization.

The next year, Davis started 15 games and amassed over 1,700 total yards of offense to go along with 14 TD’s. Davis was both a good yardage and TD back. While many slept on him, oth­ers were putting him in as a top 10 fan­tasy back. Last year, injuries lim­ited Davis to 11 games and worse, only 230 car­ries. The num­bers remained top­notch, as he had over 100 total yards in eight of those contests.

Then the Tex­ans got the first pick in the 2006 draft and every­one knows the story. Reg­gie Bush, Mario Williams, Wali Lundy, Ver­nand Morency. Essen­tially, it’s been a roller coaster ride. Rumors of Davis’ release from the Tex­ans were appar­ently pre­ma­ture. But for fan­tasy own­ers, it doesn’t mat­ter who’s on the team, it mat­ters who’s get­ting the carries.

Hous­ton Tex­ans first-year coach Gary Kubiak said there has been no dis­cus­sion of cut­ting the lead­ing rusher in fran­chise his­tory, and said that the worst-case sce­nario was a sea­son spent on the injured reserve list.

Which begs the ques­tion of “what’s a fan­tasy owner to do?” The first guy to look at is Wali Lundy. Yes, the 6th round back out of Vir­ginia. Of course, Kubiak has coached up a 6th round back before. Ter­rell Davis any­one? The Tex­ans are going to be employ­ing the same block­ing scheme the Bron­cos use which is based off of “cut-blocking.” Essen­tially, smaller, faster offen­sive line­man go for the ankles of big­ger, slower defen­sive line­man. It’s dan­ger­ous and will be out­lawed by the NFL next year. But this year, the Tex­ans could have some success.

As for what to do dur­ing drafts, I think a hand­cuff would work well if you have the ros­ter space. Lundy is the first guy to get. His value seems to be sky­rock­et­ing at the moment. He is going as high as round 7 and as low as round 22. Ver­nand Morency is also get­ting some love on draft day, but he’s not in line to get the car­ries that Lundy is. If you do get Lundy, I still sug­gest tak­ing Davis. If Davis comes back at some point, he is still capa­ble of get­ting great stats.

Tak­ing a late round flier on Davis even if you don’t have Lundy is not the worst idea in the world. Davis is only 25 and is cer­tainly capa­ble of play­ing this sea­son at some point. And finally, don’t drop Davis in dynasty leagues. Put him on your IR and stash him away for a later day.