While his peers were drawing with crayons, Davis Webb was drawing shallow crosses.
Legend has it that, as young as 6,the Broncos’ new offensive coordinator and play-caller watched college football games with a pile of little index cards beside him. On them, young Davis would sketch out the plays he happened to like.
Only that’s not the best part. Because the legend then goes on to say that he’d then leave those note cards around home where his father Matt, a high school coach, could find them. Bathrooms. Nightstands. Chairs. Just some suggestions to add to the old man’s script for the next game.
“Whenever we would start shutting down the field house at 6:30 or 7 p.m. out-of-season, he’d be in there with a passing net and cones,” former Prosper (Texas) High School coach Kent Scott, who’d tutored Webb during his senior prep season, told me over the phone Monday. “Davis would have the thing set up and he’d be putting himself through drills.”
“You ever kick him out?” I asked.
Scott laughed.
“No, I loved him up there,” he countered.
The coach paused, then laughed again.
“His dad had a key, anyways.”
Davis Webb always kept an audible in his back pocket. Even if said audible happened to be dangling from a chain.
“He was just a worker physically, a worker mentally,” Scott continued. “Davis is unbelievable. One of the best I’ve ever coached.”
Another pause.
“Maybe I should say,” Scott stressed, correcting himself, “one of the best that I ever had a chance to be coached by.”
Teachers, as a general rule, never forget two types of kids: The first are royal pains in the backside. The second are prodigies.
For Scott, who coached for nearly 25 years before moving to the insurance biz, Webb was the latter some 13-14 years ago, a man — mentally, emotionally, physically — among boys.
And Scott had some dudes over the years. One of Webb’s Prosper teammates was Torii Hunter Jr., the son of the former MLB great Torii Hunter. One of Webb’s predecessors at the program was Tyler Toney, co-founder of the “Dude Perfect” sports/comedy troupe. In hindsight, Scott sees parallels in both, even if Webb was more of the perfect dude.
“Tyler (didn’t have) the measurables or anything like what Davis had,” Scott recalled. “(But) you looked at him and said, ‘It doesn’t matter what this guy does, he’s going to be successful at what he does.’ Davis is cut out of that same cloth. That same mold.”
Sounds a lot like Bo Nix, now that you mention it. Which is why Scott thinks this whole Broncos thing is going to work, even though Webb is a relatively young 31. It’s why he thinks life at Dove Valley with Sean Payton and Nix is as much a stepping stone for The Davis Train as it is a destination gig.
Webb has been studying film, dissecting tendencies, concocting schemes, staying late and sleeping on cots in meeting rooms since he was a teenager. Nobody’s going to know the playbook better. Or apply it more wisely. It’s one of the reasons he immediately won the QB1 job as a graduate transfer with the Cal Bears in 2016, just as he had done as a high-school senior transfer at Prosper a few years earlier.
“Sometimes, kids have a hard time adjusting when you switch schools, especially as a senior,” Scott reflected. “And he didn’t miss a beat.”
The fates helped. Long story short, Webb’s coach at Keller (Texas) High, Kevin Atkinson, was leaving the program after Davis’ junior year. Mark Webb had pitched for the job, but it went to someone else. Scott said he knew Mark and had told the elder Davis a few years earlier that if he ever wanted to join the Prosper staff, they’d find him a spot. Davis was just a bonus. Some bonus.
“I got a phenomenal coach,” Scott recalled. “And obviously, I got a really good football player, to boot.”
Mark coached receivers at Prosper. When the offense would come together for drills, that’s when the fireworks started. Scott still chuckles at some of the exchanges between father and son.
“It was kind of like having two coaches,” the former high school coach said. “They would talk to each other. And they didn’t always see eye-to-eye on things, either.”
And the note-card story might not even be the best anecdote to sum up what the Broncos are getting into. For that, you have to go to The List.
When Webb entered the NFL, according to the New York Post, he kept a list of everyone who’d ever doubted him with him. He reportedly looked at The List prior to every game as a reminder. A driver. Every slight was a pilot light for whenever that little flame inside started to flicker and die.
This from a guy who shared Texas Tech QB duties with Baker Mayfeld, only to get Wally-Pipped in Lubbock after a season-ending ankle issue cleared a path for a kid named Patrick Mahomes. Davis entered school early, finished his undergrad work at Tech early, and wound up throwing for 37 touchdowns during that grad-transfer season at Cal.
“Davis had some good measurables and things, a good build at 6-4, 6-5,” Scott said. “But I don’t think he was really good as a junior-high QB. In fact, I’d heard stories about him being on a ‘B’ team or a ‘C’ team in junior high.”
Better believe that those freaking coaches made The List, too.
“He obviously experienced some failure,” Scott said. “His response to failure is to pick himself up, dust himself off and go back to work.
“(Webb) always struck me as a very emotionally mature, a very strong individual. And I think that he’s one of those guys that would be fueled by failure. Nobody wants to fail. But I can’t imagine him not taking something (as a playcaller) and learning lessons from it.”
