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Two games, two touchdowns, then a torn ACL at Georgia Tech. Why I liked him, how the injury broke it, and what a 25% bet on one tight end should teach.
2026 Before the Injury · 2 games
REC
3
43 yds
TD
2
one per game
CATCH SHARE
10%
of Tennessee's catches
HALF-PPR
8.9
per game, TE13
What I Paid · Underdog
ADP
237.9
TE30, last round
MY AVG PICK
224.0
14 picks before ADP
EXPOSURE
4 of 16
2 Tailgate, 2 BBM
STATUS
Out
torn ACL, Sept. 12
This is the one that did not work, and it is worth writing up for exactly that reason.
Ethan Davis tore his ACL in Tennessee's 45-24 win at Georgia Tech on Sept. 12. Josh Heupel announced on Monday, Sept. 14, that he will miss the rest of the season (ESPN, Sept. 14, 2026). 247Sports (Sept. 14, 2026) reports it happened while he was blocking on a run play midway through the fourth quarter.
He is on four of my sixteen teams. That is 25%, for a player drafted in the last round.
He was Tennessee's lead tight end at a last-round price. His ADP was 237.9, the 30th tight end off the board. I took him about 14 picks earlier than that on average, which tells you how much I liked him.
He was scoring. He caught a touchdown in each of the first two games, both from Faizon Brandon, from 17 and 25 yards out: 1 catch for 17 yards against Furman, 2 for 26 at Georgia Tech (ESPN box score, Sept. 12, 2026). Through two weeks he was averaging 8.9 half-PPR points, 13th among the 65 tight ends in Underdog's player pool who had played two games in our box-score data.
He had production to build on. He caught 21 passes for 257 yards last season and 39 for 433 and six touchdowns across his career, per ESPN.
Here is the part I should have weighted more before the injury, not after it.
Davis had 3 of Tennessee's 31 catches in two games, 10%. How I count it: his catches divided by team catches in the ESPN box scores, which is the closest thing to target share those box scores allow. Tennessee threw only 27 and 21 passes in those games.
So the 8.9 points a game was almost entirely two touchdowns on three catches. That is a fine outcome for a last-round tight end, but it is not a role. It is a role plus luck, and luck does not survive a torn ligament any better than a role does.
And there was a flag. 247Sports reports he was shaken up in the first practice of preseason camp and returned roughly two weeks before the opener. That was a different point in the season, and I am not going to claim the two are connected. It was still a reason to hold 25% a little more loosely.
Less than it feels like, because of how these teams were built.
Every one of the four Davis teams has at least one other tight end. Two of them also have Jeremiah Hasley (with Cole Rusk on one and Dorian Fleming on the other), one has Benjamin Brahmer and Rocky Beers, and one has Elija Lofton. Across all sixteen teams I drafted two or three tight ends each: eleven teams with two, five with three.
That is the part that mattered. Best ball has no waiver wire. The tight end you drafted is the only replacement you will ever have, so when a starter goes down, the backup is not a luxury, it is the plan.
It still hurts in one specific way. Three of the four Davis teams also have Faizon Brandon. Those rosters paired him with his quarterback, and the pairing is gone: Davis had caught two of Brandon's five touchdown passes.
Two parts, and neither is "don't draft tight ends late."
Size the bet to the role, not the upside. A tight end drawing 10% of a low-volume passing game's catches is a lottery ticket. Lottery tickets are good in the last round. Twenty-five percent of the portfolio on one lottery ticket is not.
Back up the positions that break. In a 20-round best ball draft with one tight end slot, two tight ends is the floor and three is not wasteful. My teams got that right, and it is why those four teams still have a tight end to play every week.
Tennessee's best ball playoff weeks (at Texas A&M, vs LSU, at Vanderbilt) no longer matter for him. ESPN names DaSaahn Brame, Trent Thomas, Cole Harrison and Luca Wolf as the tight ends behind him. None of them is on any of my teams, and a depth chart shuffle is not a reason to go looking.
Keep a last-round tight end closer to 15% than 25% unless he is one of his team's top two reads, and keep leaving every draft with at least two tight ends. I was already doing the second. I was not doing the first.
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Exposure figures from my own Underdog draft exports. ADP from Underdog best ball rankings. Statistics and quotes from published reporting. Nothing here is betting advice, and I am telling you what I did, not what you should do.