Former Kentucky football star Jamin Davis to miss rest of NFL season with injury
Former University of Kentucky linebacker Jamin Davis, now with the NFL’s Washington Commanders, will undergo surgery for a shoulder injury he suffered in the team’s Week 13 loss to the Miami Dolphins and be placed on injured reserve, ending his season early. It’s unclear when Davis suffered the injury; he played 55 of the team’s 61 defensive snaps against Miami. An MRI and two doctors’ opinions confirmed the injury. Davis, the No. 19 pick in the 2021 draft, has shown improvement over the past two seasons but still struggles with consistency, flashing as many game-changing plays as costly errors. In Week 6 against Atlanta, he sealed a win for Washington with an interception in the final minute. But against New England three weeks later, he cost the team a 64-yard touchdown by failing to plug a lane on a blitz. “He is going to make a lot of good plays, and every now and then he’ll have a mental [mistake], something that’ll slow him down,” Coach Ron Rivera said of Davis last month. “…
He’s that kind of impact player who’s still growing. I know he’s in his third year and everybody’s got high expectations, and so do we, but he’s still learning and growing for us.” Last year, after turning around a slow start to the season, Davis finished with a team-high 104 tackles, plus three sacks, two fumble recoveries and a pass deflection. In 13 games this season, Davis totaled 89 tackles (eight for loss), three sacks, an interception, two forced fumbles and four pass deflections.
Washington will probably turn to veteran David Mayo to start alongside Cody Barton for the remainder of the season. The Commanders have until May 2 to exercise Davis’s fifth-year contract option for 2025, which would include a projected salary of $13.3 million that would be fully guaranteed once exercised. Should the team decline the option, Davis would have one year left on his rookie contract, with a guaranteed salary of approximately $2.5 million.
