ORCHARD PARK — The legend of Ray Davis grows.
The Buffalo Bills running back had an unusual year, even by NFL standards. With Tyler Bass injured, Davis was thrust into kicking duties last preseason, knocking in an extra point in the preseason opener.
Midway through the season, Davis became Buffalo’s primary kick returner, averaging an NFL-best 30.4 yards per return to earn first-team All-Pro honors. And then a film based on his hard-scrabble childhood — with 14 siblings — that led to spending time in foster care was announced.
How about adding punt returner to the list?
Davis is among the litany of players the Bills are contemplating to field punts, something he hasn’t done since high school. But why not? He’s done everything else.
“I just want to continue to show I’m versatile and that I’m not just a running back, I’m an athlete and everything I can do,” Davis told GNN Sports after practice Tuesday. “If they wanted me to go punt the ball, I’d go punt the ball. … But just trying to be able to just be versatile and prove that I could be a core-four guy, but also I could be an immediate threat in the offensive game too.”
Considering the Bills already have two punters on the roster, the Bills are likely to pass on testing his punting leg. Although he claimed Tuesday to have bombed a punt close to 60 yards, a year after he alleged to have kicked a 57-yard field goal in high school.
The punt return thing, though, that’s an attainable goal. Davis is one of nine players the Bills have trotted back during training camp thus far, joining Dee Alford, Skyler Bell, Keon Coleman, Mac Dalena, Stephen Gosnell, Mecole Hardman Jr., Dante Pettis and Max Tomczak.
The Bills pulled the plug on Brandon Codrington after four games last year, a year after finishing fourth in the NFL with 11.6 yards per return. Instead, the Bills used Khalil Shakir and they ranked 28th with 6.5 yards per return.
The primary function for Shakir was making good decisions on when to catch the ball and when to let it hit the turf. Buffalo felt Codrington wasn’t making good decisions when it pulled him from the lineup.
“Ball security and decision-making have a lot to do with a guy’s success as a punt returner,” said Jeff Rodgers, who is entering his 16th season as an NFL special teams coordinator. “The skill set athletically is what can make a guy ascend. But if you can’t catch it or you make bad decisions you’re probably not going to be out there and get a whole lot of chances.”
There is also a big difference in returning punts and kicks, beyond the fact that there’s more room for error if a kickoff isn’t fielded cleanly. Although new rules have limited simultaneous collisions, the punt coverage team can sprint downfield on the snap — and the kick is shorter — which forces the returner to have more stop and start ability to dodge tacklers flying by.
With the new kickoff rules, the blocking setup is man-to-man, which allows the returner to pick a hole. For Davis, it wasn’t much different than playing running back at times.
But the big difference is tracking the ball. The ball usually goes end over end on a kickoff, where a punt comes off in a spiral. A kickoff has to fall into the landing zone, while a punt can go anywhere the punter desires.
“The ball trajectory is very different,” Davis said. “As a kicker, they kind of got this weird flip going on. And then, as a punter, they got a spiral. And the spiral ball comes down pretty fast and it could die on you pretty fast, or it could continue to go on you.”
While Davis doesn’t have much experience returning punts, neither do most of the candidates, at least not in the NFL. Coleman returned two punts last year for eight yards, Alford averaged eight yards per return on 20 attempts in 2023, but didn’t return a punt after becoming Atlanta’s starting nickelback.
Hardman is the most experienced, earning All-Pro honors as a rookie returner in 2019. He was signed last season to shore up Buffalo’s return issues, but a hamstring issue limited him to two games and two returns.
The Bills would almost certainly prefer their returner to already have a roster spot rather than allocating one specifically for a punt returner, especially when Davis is going to be the primary kick returner.
“It doesn’t always come down to who has the best skill set,” Rodgers said. “… You hope it does, but your roster has to be able to accommodate that. … The bottom line is, that guy’s got the ball in his hands a lot. … You need to have people back there that you trust.”