Mike Davis sat by alone at his locker Tuesday morning and tapped out a tweet.
“Control what you can control,” he wrote. “Another day of staying positive.”
He would have reasons to sulk: six weeks after signing a two-year, $6 million deal in March, he watched as the Bears drafted fellow running back David Montgomery. Davis has played only 71 offensive snaps this season, running 11 times for 25 yards and catching seven passes for 22 yards — hardly the production he or the Bears envisioned after he ran 112 times for 514 yards with the Seahawks last year.
Control what you can control. Another day of staying positive
— IG MikeDavisRB (@MikeDavisRB) November 5, 2019
Davis played 55 offensive snaps over the Bears’ first two games — and 16 since, though he missed one game after a death in his family. Despite coach Matt Nagy saying he’s done everything the team has asked, Davis hasn’t played a single offensive down in two of the past three games.
And now there’s this wrinkle: if the Bears cut him before Sunday, they improve their chances of receiving a compensatory fourth-round draft pick in 2020. It would mark the Bears’ first such pick in 11 years and replenish a draft cache depleted by the Bears’ trades for both Montgomery and star outside linebacker Khalil Mack.
Minutes after his tweet, Davis was asked about the potential move.
“I feel like, thinking of something like that is negative,” Davis said. “I really don’t care about outside voices or whatever comes with it. All I can do is come and show up every day, be a great teammate and be ready to go no matter what happens.”
It’s his job, he said, to be that way.
“That’s just something that, I just gotta stay positive, stay upbeat,” he said. “Don’t let anything take my joy. Just come here, have fun and work. I love my guys. I love my teammates around me. I refuse to be that teammate who’s just bringing negative vibes.”
There was a time when he let those vibes get the best of him. In 2017, his first year with the Seahawks, he played only six games, rushing 68 times for 240 yards.
“I’ve been in a dark place before, when I was in Seattle, when I first started,” he said. “I always told myself I’d never go back to that place again. So it’s something: I’ll always keep a smile on my face, I’ll always be upbeat. So it doesn’t matter the situation. …
“It [was] basically just mental — me loving the game and not being able to play and help my teammates, it really put me in a dark place where I really hated a lot of things. But that’s what you have family for, to help you get out of those tough situations. But it was kinda brutal for me.”
Davis hasn’t been able to crack the rotation of the league’s sixth-worst rushing attack. His awkward fit is reminiscent of one of Ryan Pace’s worst free-agent acquisitions, receiver Markus Wheaton. Signed to a two-year, $11 million contract with $6 million guaranteed in 2017, Wheaton caught three passes — on, amazingly, 17 targets — for 51 yards before being cut after one year. He never caught another pass in the NFL.
Davis, though, might be best compared to former Bears quarterback Mike Glennon. Like Glennon, he was signed in March to be the starter, with the team knowing it could also use their top draft pick that year on someone who played the same spot. They drafted Mitch Trubisky after signing Glennon, and Montgomery after inking Davis.
Davis he has been surprised — “Obviously,” he said — with the way things have gone. But he’s tried to put a brave face on it.
“Things happen,” he said. “So my mindset is always just to be ready no matter what.”
