Another punch in the stomach was suffered by all of the Isaac Redman and Frank Summers supporters today when “Frank the Tank” was placed on IR with a back injury and fullback Carey Davis was signed to take his place. Like it or not, Davis was the right choice. Keep in mind that tight end/fullback David Johnson will be out a while with a high ankle sprain and Summers likely would of been down a while regardless if the back injury was season ending or not. Throw on top of this that tight end Matt Spaeth is suffering from a hip pointer and it made Davis the obvious choice.
Davis is a special teams ace, a more than adequate blocker and can also be used in short yardage situations. While Redman is still an interesting project going forward, head coach Mike Tomlin knows exactly what he has in Davis. Other than some late pre-season appearances by Redman, which no doubt were good, he just does not bring the things to the table that Davis does.
Redman is a running back, an undrafted running back at that. No I am not down on him, he still could have a role someday on the roster, especially if Willie Parker\’s turf toe gets worse and Rashard Mendenhall continues to be the second coming of Walter Abercrombie. Redman\’s main reason for not making the final 53 man roster was because of his versatility, Davis not making it was a numbers game coupled with rookie draft picks that could contribute on special teams. Another reason was the emergence of kick returner Stefan Logan, who likely made Davis the 54th man on the roster.
You may not like the un-sexiness of Davis, but on game-day you need to watch closely how versatile he really is. I have a feeling in a few weeks, you will agree that you are indeed glad to have him back on roster and that it was clearly the right choice.
