Nate Davis

Just another early 49ers’ preseason game. Yawn. Me assigned to write about Alex Smith, and he looked pretty good, but what does it mean?

Typical 49ers August stuff. And then: Mike Singletary was asked about 2nd-year QB Nate Davis, who did some interesting stuff (yet again) tonight when he was given the entire second half to play, and, as can happen now and again with Singletary, the sparks flew.

And the motivation-moment began.

Singletary said he’s up and down on Davis, like Davis is up and down in the game, including tonight, when he fired that 60-yard pass to Ted Ginn, but also blew some protection calls and fell down for a 5-yard gain on third-and-6.

Singletary said he’s not sure about Davis’ work ethic. Hmm. Alert, alert.

And when Lowell C asked him what he meant by that, Singletary launched into a fiery soliloquy about Davis wanting to learn now, in training camp, but probably didn’t put enough effort into learning the playbook and mastering other details before camp ever started.

During some of this fascinating and totally unexpected discourse, the door to the interview room popped open and I saw Davis standing there, right outside, well within hearing range even with the door closed.

Singletary is not quiet when he does these podium performances, FYI.

I don’t know if Davis heard any of it, or would’ve minded it, or that Singletary cared either way.

(Davis was very calm, as usual, when he was asked about Singletary’s comments a little later. Not at all surprised, clearly. And very accepting of the criticism.)

But it was an interesting moment to be standing directly between Singletary and a student getting a loud message. Very interesting.


Singletary has touched on this issue before, particularly in a mini-camp when he said Davis wasn’t progressing as fast as he would like and definitely not as much as the coaching staff would like.

We all know Davis has tremendous talent, and improvisational skill; we also know he has a learning disability that the 49ers staff has worked to help him with since drafting him last year.

And we know Singletary saves some of his toughest love for the players he thinks can produce for him, but need a little verbal shaking. He wouldn’t be saying this if he didn’t think there was a lot there in Davis.

But it also struck me that, when I asked Alex Smith generally about Davis tonight, Smith also went right to the subject of Davis’ work habits and command of the system.

Smith is not what you’d call a public hard-ass. He doesn’t ever call out his teammates. Clearly, he’s surely heard the coaches’ worries about Davis, but Smith didn’t have to repeat them.

And yet he did. This is not your normal situation with a young third-stringer. Not at all.

Right off, I’d say Davis has no chance to supplant David Carr as the No. 2 this year–but I never thought that was possible. Now you have to start thinking further down the line.

Just another preseason game. Then bam, something to really chew over for many days, I’m sure.

–Here’s what Smith said: “Nate’s extremely talented. Off the bat, it’s easy to see the arm talent out there. Runs around, makes the throws.

“For Nate, it’s going to be continue to be him grasping the offense, how much time he puts in, in the film room, in the playbook. The little details. Because obviously he’s got the talent. Those are the types of things, him taking a little more command of the huddle and the offense when he’s in there.”