What has Ashtyn Davis been up to for the New York Jets? (Film)

New York Jets rookie safety Ashtyn Davis got a season-high in defensive snaps against Buffalo after getting none the previous game. Jets fans have yet to see much of California product Ashtyn Davis, the first defensive player drafted by Joe Douglas in his career as a general manager. Davis has played quite frequently on special teams (46% of the special teams snaps on average in his 5 games), but the young safety has been hard to spot on defense. He missed Weeks 3-4 with a groin injury, and in the five games he has played, Davis has participated in a grand total of only 59 defensive snaps (16% of the defensive snaps on average). In two of his five appearances, Davis did not play a single defensive snap. Fortunately, it appears that Davis may finally be working his way into regular playing time on defense. After getting zero defensive snaps against Miami in Week 6, Davis played a season-high 32% of the defensive snaps against Buffalo (season-high 24 total defensive snaps). Meanwhile, Bradley McDougald began to be phased out as he played a season-low 68% of the defensive snaps. McDougald - who had been averaging 94% of the defensive snaps over the first six games - has been one of the NFL's worst safeties this year, and Gregg Williams seems to be adjusting accordingly. Davis roamed all over the field against the Bills. He logged 11 snaps at free safety (45.8%), eight in the box as either an inside linebacker or strong safety (33.3%), three as an outside linebacker (12.5%), one as a slot cornerback (4.2%), and one as an outside cornerback (4.2%). Let's take a look at some of the unique ways Davis was utilized in Week 7. On this 1st & 10 play, Davis lines up as the weak side safety about seven yards off the line of scrimmage as the Jets show a single-high look with Marcus Maye as the deep man. Just before the snap, Davis begins dropping back to play the deep half in a Tampa-2 look. Maye sinks and covers the hole, while Brian Poole drops into the deep half on the other side. Davis is responsible for the boundary side half. Davis prepares to pick up Stefon Diggs over the middle and then adjusts to cover Cole Beasley's deep post route when Maye passes it off to him. Davis gets over top of Beasley in time to discourage the throw and Josh Allen dumps the ball to Zack Moss underneath. Avery Williamson misses the tackle and Davis arrives next, going with a shoulder-first dive to cut Moss down in the open field. On 2nd & 4 here, Davis essentially lines up at weak side linebacker. He shifts his positioning along with Blessuan Austin as the running back (Moss) motions out wide and then comes back into the backfield. Once Moss returns to the backfield, Davis settles in across from him about five yards downfield, at equal depth with middle linebacker Neville Hewitt. Davis and Austin's movements appeared to show that Austin would man up against the outside man while Davis would do so against the inside man, so Davis appears to be in man coverage against Moss. However, just before the snap, Davis drops to play the deep third in a Cover-3 while Austin plays the curl/flat zone. The Bills have the perfect route combination on the left side to beat Davis and Austin's coverage. Moss runs into the flat while rookie receiver Gabriel Davis quickly sits down, forcing Austin to pick his poison. Austin favors Moss in the flat, so Allen makes the right decision and hits Gabriel Davis for the first down. Ashtyn comes down and combines with Austin on the tackle. On this 3rd & 15 play, Davis lines up as the single-high safety prior to the Jets rotating their defense pre-snap. Pierre Desir moves across the formation to replace Maye against the bunch formation, Maye moves up to the single-high spot, and Davis drops down to cover tight end Tyler Kroft man-to-man. Allen gets the ball out quickly to Kroft and Davis runs him out of bounds for an eight-yard gain that brings up 4th & 7. Solid coverage there. Davis slides outside and stays square as Kroft releases outside, gets hands-on to work Kroft towards the sideline, attaches to Kroft's front hip, and stays on top of Kroft after his break, refraining from taking the risk of undercutting the route and focusing on driving him out of bounds shy of the sticks. With such a small amount of playing time this season, it is hard to deduce exactly where Davis is at, but one positive note on his early resume is that he has refrained from making any big mistakes in coverage during his limited time in action. Over 37 coverage snaps this season - which equates to about one game's worth - Davis has yet to allow a first down and has only been targeted one time, the throw to Kroft seen above. That's too tiny of a sample size to definitively say anything about Davis' game, but it at least showcases that Davis has likely handled the basics of his responsibilities soundly enough for Williams to trust him with replacing McDougald, especially considering how poorly the latter has played this season. We should begin to see Davis on an increasingly regular basis over the next few weeks. Time to find out if he and Maye are a compatible long-term duo.