Mike Davis (RB, CHI) - 2019 Fantasy Football Sleeper

BALLER MOVE: Target Around ~210 Overall

Current ADP: ~240

Too many fantasy players are overlooking or forgetting about free-agent acquisition Mike Davis. He is going to be more than just a backup to David Montgomery, as some are assuming. Davis performed well when pressed into action at times in Seattle last year and left the team in free agency to pursue a larger role. He is also versatile and can run with power. Davis is elusive and runs with a lot of determination.

Bears RB Coach Charles London has praised both Montgomery and Davis so far as the team readies for the upcoming season. He or the team has given no clear indication that they clearly prefer Montgomery over Davis and there have been no true insider reports to support such a theory. Fantasy players are viewing Montgomery as the upside play and don’t see Davis as a major threat to the rookie’s status. That may be a mistake.

Davis is not even being drafted among the top-60 RBs. But we should not forget he ran for 169 yards and three TDs in Weeks 4 and 5 last year. In the first of those two games, he rushed for 101 yards and two scores while being pressed into starting duty. That week, most observers expected Seattle to start Rashaad Penny in place of an injured Chris Carson, but they turned to Davis. There is a lesson to be learned there about not pushing him aside in your mind in 2019. He also had 107 yards from scrimmage with seven receptions in Week 9. The following game, he totaled 80 yards from scrimmage and caught four passes.

Those numbers may not be enough to consider Davis a favorite to emerge as a featured ball carrier, but they are certainly good enough for him to be considered a legitimate threat to the playing time of Montgomery and even Tarik Cohen. The latter finished as a fantasy RB1 in PPR last year, but he appears set to carry the ball less with both Montgomery and Davis being added. There are now two other RBs to compete with Cohen for carries for instead of one. The Bears can focus more on him operating more frequently as a pure receiver.