Saturday, former Georgia Tech tight end Tyler Davis watched the NFL draft with his family in Bellmore, N.Y. He was in the same living room where he had watched NFL games on TV and dreamed of someday reaching that plateau.
Sitting with his parents Steve and Cindy and brothers Bryan and Jake, Davis waited and hoped that the phone would ring. Just before 5 p.m., Davis got a call from Jacksonville general manager David Caldwell, informing him that the Jaguars were taking him with a sixth-round pick, the 206th overall. In a recording of the phone call that the Jaguars released on Twitter, Davis’ tears began to flow freely as a dream literally came true.
“It was a real emotional moment for me and my family just because we have been through it all the last 15 years, dreaming about this, and this was the moment,” Davis told the AJC. “I’ll remember this day for the rest of my life.”
Davis, who came to Tech as a grad transfer last January from Connecticut to be coach Geoff Collins’ first tight end, became the team’s first draft choice since 2017, when kicker Harrison Butker was selected. It ended the longest active draft drought of any power-conference team.
Davis was an under-the-radar prospect, not invited to the NFL draft combine, the Senior Bowl or the East-West Shrine Bowl. However, he drew the attention of NFL scouts with his size, athleticism and versatility, all of which were on display at Tech’s March 11 pro day, where he ran the 40-yard dash in an attention-getting 4.65 seconds. Undoubtedly, his work ethic and leadership, evidenced in his being voted a team captain despite being on campus for one season, only added to his candidacy.
Among the scouts in attendance was one from Jacksonville, who had had dinner with him the night prior to the pro day, Davis told Jacksonville media Saturday. Tech was among the final schools to hold a pro day before the coronavirus pandemic canceled the remainder.
“I was lucky to get (the pro day) in and he saw the numbers after and he said, ‘We’ll for sure be in touch’ after those numbers I put up,” Davis told media in Jacksonville on a conference call Saturday.
Jacksonville wanted to bring Davis in for a visit to get to know him better and put him through a physical, plans that were thwarted because of the coronavirus. Still, it made an impression, as did a later phone call with tight-ends coach Ron Middleton.
“I’m always a firm believer in choosing someone who first believes in you,” Davis said. “I’ve always done that. That means so much to me.”
So for Jacksonville to ultimately select Davis, who heard from half the league’s teams in pre-draft interviews, was “surreal,” he said.
On that subject, soon after he was picked, neighbors came out of their homes, cheering. Friends drove by honking their horns. At the start of an interview around 6:30 p.m., Davis reported that he had received 312 text messages.
“I don’t think I’ve ever had more than 10 on my phone,” he said. “I never thought I was that popular.”
Davis became the first Tech tight end to be drafted since Tom Covington in 1992.
Davis will be joined by receiver/running back Nathan Cottrell, who agreed to an undrafted free-agent contract with the Jaguars after the draft ended. Jacksonville, like other teams, was interested in Cottrell as a special-teams player, a role he filled for the Jackets this past season. Cottrell described himself as “ecstatic” to continue to be a teammate of Davis.
Prior to him taking that special-teams role, he had been in a rotation at A-back for former coach Paul Johnson and had started a total of three games in three seasons.
“I never would have thought this was going to be a realistic opportunity (going into the season),” Cottrell told the AJC. “And as we kept going through the season, (I) just kept hearing more and more from coach Collins and the other coaches about how scouts had been asking about me, and it all started to come together, and here we are.”
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