Marcus Davenport has not even been through a fully padded practice with the Detroit Lions yet, but he’s already carrying some interesting expectations. The pass rusher, signed as a free agent this offseason, was tabbed as the Lions player who is the best candidate for a bounce-back season by the analysts at Pro Football Focus.
Davenport was up-and-down in his five seasons with the New Orleans Saints, and his last year there was a down one. The 2018 first-rounder from UTSA notched just 0.5 sacks in 15 games in 2022, a season after bagging nine sacks and nine other TFLs in 2021, his best season. Davenport’s 2023 was entirely forgettable for him and regrettable for the Vikings, who signed him as a free agent only to see him battle a high ankle sprain for four games and miss the rest of the season.
If there’s anything left in Davenport, Detroit does seem a good place to coax the rebound. As PFF notes,
In New Orleans, though, Davenport proved to be a regularly disruptive defensive lineman. He generated 30 or more pressures in each of his first five seasons and especially peaked toward the end of his first contract, with an 88.8 overall grade in 2021.
The Lions’ defensive line should be formidable this year with Aidan Hutchinson, D.J. Reader and Alim McNeill, but don’t discount Davenport looking more like himself and also wreaking havoc.
While PFF didn’t list any other candidates for any of the teams, Detroit does have a couple other potential bounce-back prospects. Defensive lineman John Cominsky saw his overall play and his pass rushing productivity slip quite a bit in 2023, his second season in Detroit. Punter Jack Fox quietly had his worst season in 2023 too, finishing almost 2.5 yards per punt shy of his average over the first three years of his career.