Things had gone sour in San Francisco and reports of a Vernon Davis trade had been swirling for weeks before it finally came to fruition. Davis had read the stories. And knew what had really happened behind the scenes.
But when 49ers general manager Trent Baalke called Davis early Monday and asked him to come to his office, the news was still surprising.
“I sat there and he was like, ‘Denver is very, very interested in you,'” Davis recalled. “I said, ‘Really?’ I was kind of excited at the same time. I was like, ‘Wow, Denver? Really? That’d be an amazing place to go to, I mean Peyton Manning’s there. Are you kidding me?'”
Davis, 31, was drafted by the 49ers in 2006 and has spent the last nine-plus seasons in San Francisco, playing with quarterback Alex Smith and then Colin Kaepnerick. He made it to the Super Bowl with San Francisco, in 2012, and watched the bottom fall out this year, with a 2-6 start and the eventual benching of Kaepernick.
VIDEO: Davis says teaming with Manning a dream come true
The trade to Denver gives Davis a clean slate and chance to possibly revive a career that has fallen off in recent seasons.
“I just had to — where I came from, I just had to accept what I had,” he said. “Not knocking those guys.Col in and Alex were really good. They were good at their craft. They were good quarterbacks, but we’re talking about Peyton Manning. It’s a whole other level.”
His first two days in Denver have been overwhelming as he scrambles to learn a new offense and its verbiage, and the ways of Manning midway through the season.
“Every chance that he got, he would grab me and we would just walk through some things,” Davis said. “It’s different. I mean, I’ve never seen anything like it before. Everything is completely different. Just the way that he’s talking to me, I’m shaking my head, ‘Yeah, I understand.’ It makes a lot of sense, but it’s everything. The verbiage, signals and the way Peyton wants things, it’s just different, but I’ll get it.”
The start has been hectic, but for Davis, it’s also a dream realized.
“Peyton is one of those guys that every wide receiver dreams about having,” he said. “I’ve been dreaming about Peyton since I left college.”
