Davis embraces leadership role on Colts ‘D’
Vontae Davis sees the young guns coming, ready to step into his locker room, all these babyfaced 21- and 22-year-olds who heard their name called in the NFL draft.
Malik Hooker? Quincy Wilson? Maybe even Nate Hairston? Could be the future of the Indianapolis Colts defense. Could be.
Davis? He’s the present. The linchpin. He’s also, suddenly, the teacher.
Along with fellow defensive back Darius Butler, who also arrived in Indy in 2012, Davis is the last Colt standing on defense. The men he lined up alongside for years here have moved on — they’ve retired, been cut or not been re-signed. The turnover is staggering: Davis could be one of two returning starters come Week 1.
Robert Mathis is gone. Erik Walden is gone. D’Qwell Jackson. Mike Adams. Art Jones. Trent Cole. Patrick Robinson.
Davis is still around, preparing for his ninth season in the NFL and sixth with the Colts, the established veteran ready to mentor an infusion of youth.
“Now it’s on me and Darius Butler. We have to be the guys who keep that room together,” Davis says.
Davis is the unit’s best player, and elite cornerbacks are among this league’s most valuable assets.
It’s no coincidence Davis’ best season in the NFL — 2014 — coincided with the Colts’ best defensive year of the Chuck Pagano era. Opposing quarterbacks managed a 38.8 passer rating against him that season, best of any corner in football. Back then, Davis was so good, his lockdown ability could camouflage the Colts’ glaring lack of a pass rush. They made it to the AFC Championship Game. It’s gone downhill since. The past two seasons were tougher. Davis has fought off injuries more frequently than any other player on the roster, and they caught up to him late last year, when his play slid from its elite level. At one point, he’d spent as many days on the practice field (14) as he had off it. It was one thing after another: He slogged through an ankle injury, a concussion, another ankle problem, a groin muscle injury.
“This game, man, is a 100% injury rate,” he said then.
The two-time Pro Bowl pick has missed practice days because of 14 different injuries in Indianapolis.
Somehow, though, has missed only nine of 86 starts.
Davis welcomes a much-needed youth movement to the Colts’ defensive backfield. The Colts spent their top two picks in last month’s draft on the secondary, grabbing Ohio State safety Hooker 15th overall and Florida cornerback Wilson in the second round. (Hairston, from Temple, was a fifth-rounder.) The need was there, and the door is open: Don’t be shocked if Hooker and Wilson work their way into the starting lineup by the season opener.
“We drafted those guys to come in and play right away,” Davis said. “You don’t go first or second round unless you’re talented.”
He would know. He was a firstrounder out of Illinois in 2009, and it wasn’t until the Miami Dolphins traded him to the Colts three years later that he fully lived up to his potential.
Simply by lasting nine years in the league, Davis becomes a mentor in a way he never has before. Playing in the defensive backfield is difficult, and it’s even tougher on rookies. Opposing quarterbacks target them mercilessly.
If they’re not ready, it gets ugly quickly. Even if they are ready, it still gets ugly.
As Davis has pointed out dozens of times, “As a cornerback, you’re sort of on an island. You’ve got to have short-term memory.”
He added, “Those guys being young probably won’t say it, but they’re going to come in and look up to me. That’s what young guys do. They come in and look up to veterans who’ve made a name in the league. ... They’re going to be watching me, all the time.”
Davis also sees what first-year general manager Chris Ballard is doing: stacking each position group with able bodies in a clear effort to bolster competition. Beyond Davis at corner and Clayton Geathers at safety, every other starting job on the defense appears up for grabs. That’s how Ballard wants it. Training camp should be interesting.
“There’s no position that’s solidified,” Davis said. “I’m going to push these guys to try and take my spot. We’re going to push that competition.”
In the back of Davis’ mind is the fact that he’s entering a contract year. He’ll be 29 in March when the Colts have to decide whether to keep him. While Ballard’s decisions have made it clear he’s chasing a younger defense, Davis still owns immense value. At his best, he’s one of the top corners in the league, a press-coverage specialist whom any unit could plug in on one side of the defense and watch him work.
But after two seesaw years, he’ll have to prove it all again. If 2015 and 2016 have told us anything, the Colts defense goes as Davis goes. This team needs its best defensive player playing his best.
“It falls on me,” he said. “I’m the leader of that group. If I’m not playing well, I don’t think anybody’s going to play well. I’ve got to play my best ball all the time, and that’s the approach I’m taking.” Keefer writes for The Indianapolis Star, part of the USA TODAY Network.