New Broncos tight end Vernon Davis wore the smile of a man who had escaped the darkest corner of football purgatory for the bright sunshine of Colorado. And know the best thing about his first day of work in Denver?
Davis no longer was a prisoner of a hopeless situation with the San Francisco 49ers, where he had little hope of catching the football and, worse, zero shot at playing for a championship.
“When you get older, it’s more pressing that you win, because you know your time is running short. There’s a clock. If you don’t get a championship now, you might never get it,” said Davis, who was discouraged in San Francisco, where he was stuck on a last-place team in the final year of his contract, and the 31-year-old tight end felt like his time to win a Super Bowl ring with the Niners had expired.
“The clock was running out on me. But, now, I woke up in Denver and the clock is back on.”
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A trade landed him in a new city, with a new uniform to wear and new offense to learn. It was all so new to Davis on Wednesday that leaving the field after his first practice with the Broncos he had to ask which door led to the locker room.
We stood there, as storm clouds built over the Rocky Mountains, and what struck me first about Davis is, while his body is 250 pounds of sculpted granite, inside this 6-foot-3 frame is a soft heart screaming to be told he can be somebody in this league again.
When I reminded him the Niners were the NFL’s best team for a 24-month span from 2011-13, only to see their dreams of a ring dashed by incomprehensible turnovers in the conference title game one year and a drive that stalled in the red zone late in the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl the next season, the eyes of Davis turned stormy with the memories of what could have been.
Earlier, Davis bared a little piece of his soul when I asked where he had gone, as a two-time Pro Bowler turned nearly invisible during the Niners’ recent slide from elite team to laughingstock.
“Everyone is asking that question: Where did I go? … San Francisco, look at the year when I started to drop off. What happened with the team? They started to fall, there were so many things going on, so much turmoil,” said Davis, who has caught a modest 44 passes and scored only two touchdowns in the 20 games since the outset of the 2014 season.
“No one really excelled. No one really had success. As a team, we didn’t have success. If the team’s not having success, chances are I’m not going to have success. That’s what it is. Look at them now. They’ve won only two games. It’s hard, and it’s tough to be able to play with a team where you just don’t have everything you need.”
The Niners were the only pro team Davis knew. Yet they got rid of him in his 10th season, the same as San Francisco parted ways with coach Jim Harbaugh during a messy divorce only months earlier. As Davis got comfortable in the Denver locker room, his head spun while contemplating what qualifies as loyalty in the NFL.
“Loyalty? That’s a hard question. I’ve got to think about that one,” Davis said. “Loyalty is the guy next to you on the field. I think it’s your teammates, being loyal to your teammates. The organization? I mean, the organization can be loyal to you. But it’s also a business. This is my first time changing teams, so I’ll let you know how it goes.”
In a Denver offense where tight end is a favored position of coach Gary Kubiak and quarterback Peyton Manning, it won’t be any trouble finding ways to employ the talents of Davis.
But here’s the real challenge: The spirit of Davis has been dinged, and his ego has taken hits. There was evidence he emotionally checked out while still receiving a paycheck from the Niners. He lost his heart in San Francisco. The Broncos need to help Davis fall in love with football again.
Manning is the stuff of a receiver’s dreams, and Davis insisted he has been dreaming about catching a pass from Manning for years.
Hey, maybe that’s a start.
“I think right now I’m in a situation where I’m able to win, first and foremost,” said Davis, who needs to shine with the Broncos for the most basic financial reason in a tough business: His contract expires at season’s end, and his worth on the open market is on the line.
“Not only win, but I also have a chance to make plays. If you’re playing with a guy like Peyton Manning, everyone is going to make plays. It’s going to happen. That’s just the way it works.”
Mark Kiszla: mkiszla@denverpost.com or @markkiszla
