From one Davis to another Davis

We all remember week 6 of the 2008 NFL season, when interim head coach Mike Singletary did something which changed the career of one young and immature player, Vernon Davis.


That was the day that the famous “I want winners” speech was born and led Singletary into his first official head coaching job and made Vernon Davis an All-Pro.

That day, Mike Singletary kicked Vernon Davis off the field and was lambasted in the media for kicking a player off the field and then calling him out in a post-game press conference. Almost everyone thought Singletary would lose the team for sure.

That’s not exactly what happened.

In the following season Vernon Davis became the best tight end in football and broke the 49ers tight end touchdown record and tied the all-time touchdown record for a tight end in the NFL, which is currently held by Antonio Gates.

Mike Singletary’s reaching into the old bag of tricks again with another player with the surname Davis.


Following Sunday’s preseason win over the Packers Vikings, he made sure that Nate Davis was not flying too high after his impressive second-half performance. Although, most 49ers fans, Al Michaels, and Cris Collinsworth were all impressed Singletary made sure that we knew he was not impressed.

Right now, Nate Davis is working his tail off to try and learn this system. But in the offseason, that’s when you take the time to get that done, and I’m not sure how hard he worked this offseason getting that done. So when I talk about work ethic, you just can’t turn it on and it off, and now come to training camp (and say), ‘Coach, I’m really trying. I’m really trying.’ You know what? The offseason when we were in the OTAs, the minicamps and all those things, that’s when you have to get that done.

And that’s when you have to stay up and drive the coaches crazy and look at film and ask all the questions you possibly can. I’m not sure he did that. So right now, it’s a lot he has to get in a short amount of time. Hopefully, he can do that. I don’t know. We’ll see.

If history has taught us anything, it should be that Singletary knows how to push guys buttons and motivate them. He must be pretty convinced that this kind of public lashing, of which Nate Davis agreed was true, could be the key to motivating him just in time.

There is no way that his was ever going to challenge Smith for the starting job but if Nate Davis can get his act together he could be your starting QB in 2011, especially if Smith underperforms this year.