Vernon Davis Has Nearly Become an Afterthought in 49ers Offense

It isn't possible to have a better start to a season than Vernon Davis’ first quarter in Week 1 this year.

I suppose we can bicker over what separates a great start from an awesome start, or a pretty alright start from a good start. But let’s agree that this is pretty damn efficient: two catches, two touchdowns.

The San Francisco 49ers tight end was targeted on two of quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s first four pass attempts to start the season during an eventual win over the Dallas Cowboys. Both throws ended with Davis standing in the end zone.

That was a happy time for him, because anyone would be filled with gleeful delight while scoring on their first two receptions to start a season.

But this isn’t a story about Davis during happy times. Those have ended.

This is a story about the search for Vernon Davis. It isn't a playful “Where’s Waldo?” search, and at minimum, we need the detective skills of the Hardy Boys.

Davis is almost only physically present for the 49ers now, with that efficient start a faded memory. His overall production looks like a funny joke until you realize that, yes, those numbers are real. He’s appeared in seven games and has caught 17 passes for 169 yards with the two touchdowns from Week 1.

That’s an average of 9.9 yards per reception. His per-catch average in 2013 finished over six yards higher at 16.3, and over his eight previous seasons, it’s never fallen into the single digits.

Of course, that average can fluctuate and spike upwards if Davis suddenly sizzles over a stretch of games. But when we compare the little he’s done over an already significant stretch of this season to the same period last year, the contrast is jarring and the confusion grows.

Split	Receptions	Yards	Touchdowns
After seven games in 2014	17	168	2
After seven games in 2013	29	518	7

Davis also caught two passes for gains of over 60 yards during the period in question a year ago. In four of his seven games this year, his longest reception has gone for less than 15 yards, low-lighted by only eight yards on one catch in Week 10.

Of course, it’s difficult to gain yards of any significance when you don’t have a football in your hands often. Zooming in closer on Davis’ meager reception total, he's recorded only one four-catch game. He met or exceeded that mark seven times in 2013.

This is when we should acknowledge Davis’ missed time and his general gimping in a few other games. He missed Week 3 with an ankle problem and then took a hard wallop from Philadelphia Eagles linebacker DeMeco Ryans in the third quarter of a Week 5 win that resulted in another missed game.

But while those whacks aren’t exactly ideal and may slow down a 30-year-old body as Davis approaches a decade’s worth of NFL abuse, his abrupt production spiral can’t be shrugged off because of injuries alone.

After all, he’s healthy enough now to bust through coverage deep down the middle. He’s such a concern to opposing safeties that illegal measures pulled straight from NFL Blitz are necessary.

Davis still hasn’t logged a game with over 45 receiving yards this season. Which leads to a final and damning comparison to 2013, and it shows we are not actually watching the real Davis this season. Instead, we're seeing a cheap imitation (the fake Oakley sunglasses of tight ends).

A season ago, Davis finished sixth among all tight ends with 850 receiving yards and tied for fifth among all players at every position with 13 touchdowns. He’s now on pace for 385 yards (a low since 2008) and only four touchdowns.

Here's a quick look at the tight ends who currently have more receiving yards than Davis. It includes, well, pretty much all of them.

Player	Rank	Receptions	Yards
Brent Celek	28th	19	206
Austin Seferian-Jenkins	29th	19	198
Timothy Wright	30th	17	187
Anthony Fasano	31st	20	173
Vernon Davis	32nd	17	169

You read that correctly: Davis is behind a New England Patriots tight end who has four games with zero receptions this season (Timothy Wright) and a Kansas City Chiefs tight end averaging 8.6 yards per catch (Anthony Fasano).

It seems the search for Davis (or at least the real one) needs to be expanded. We should begin digging underground.

What brought him to this sudden descent into nothingness? We've established exactly how far he’s fallen into a pit of despair, and now answering that question starts with an element far out of Davis’ control.

When you turn on his game film, there isn’t a glaring decline in his freakish speed for a man of his size (even at 6’3” and 250 lbs, he ran the 40-yard dash in 4.38 seconds at the 2006 scouting combine, the eighth-fastest time that year). He still has smooth hands, too, and often goes full grizzly bear while wrestling for the ball in traffic during his few opportunities.

No, the problem goes far deeper than that, and it lies in usage (or a lack thereof).

Davis is fourth on his own team in receiving yards, another troubling list for him. Wide receiver Anquan Boldin leads it by a wide margin over fellow wideout Michael Crabtree (635 yards to Crabtree’s 424). Boldin has also been on the other end for 28.5 percent of Kaepernick’s 179 completions, while a minuscule 9.5 percent have gone to Davis.

The 49ers don’t have a pass-heavy offense to begin with (24th in attempts per game at 33.0). So if the completion and target pie is sliced up heavily in favor of one option, the rest will starve. And when we look at targets, it’s clear only Boldin and Crabtree are getting healthy meals.

Player	Targets	% of team targets
Anquan Boldin	72	24.9
Michael Crabtree	63	21.8
Stevie Johnson	39	13.5
Vernon Davis	30	10.4
Brandon Lloyd	22	7.6

Boldin’s target volume is so high that during a Week 10 win over the New Orleans Saints, the percentage of Kaepernick’s throws directed at him reached an absurd level. Kaepernick launched his football missiles at Boldin 14 times, which approached half of his attempts (43.8 percent).

Davis might not be fully healthy, and with his lack of production, there’s plenty of reason to believe one of his injuries from earlier this year is still lingering. Or at least that’s what the 49ers faithful should be hoping for in an oddly cold and cruel way, because there’s no reason a healthy Davis should be minimized to the point he’s nearly forgotten.

You can make the case that Boldin is also large (6’1”, 220 lbs) and plays with both the body and mentality of a tight end. He’s also a little more nimble and can cut quicker, giving him access to a more diverse selection of routes. There may be times then when Davis becomes redundant next to Boldin depending on the game situation and matchups.

That argument for Davis’ sudden vanishing act would be valid if he also wasn’t being neglected in the red zone. That’s where Davis earns his NFL cash, and he’s been absent there, too.

Mike Clay of Pro Football Focus (via ESPN.com; subscription required) recently looked back on red-zone production since 2008. To the surprise of no one, Davis had the best catch rate in the league during that span among players who had seen at least 50 red-zone targets. Over the six-year stretch, Davis was targeted 54 times in that rather important area of the field, catching 61 percent of those balls (the league average was 37 percent).

How many red-zone looks has Davis seen this season? One.

Only one, even though he’s still a “matchup nightmare.”

That’s baffling and simply inexplicable for an offense ranked 31st in the red zone with a touchdown conversion rate of only 44.8 percent. If Davis is healthy enough to be playing, then he’s also healthy enough to be a factor in the red zone.

Even when he was getting stuffed last year during the playoffs (only 54 receiving yards), Davis was still a consistently relied upon option in and around the red zone. He scored twice over the three games, one on a 28-yard deep ball.

There are multiple foggy layers of confusion hovering around Davis’ 2014 season. Maybe he’s slowed by a step or so, which is allowed because time and age remain undefeated. Or maybe offensive coordinator Greg Roman’s increased use of spread formations are leading to fewer opportunities. Shifting the offensive focus in a different direction is just fine. But nearly eliminating Davis with an average of only 4.3 targets each week isn’t.

A course correction needs to happen fast as a 5-4 team claws for the playoffs, especially with some appealing matchups teed up. Over the rest of their season, the 49ers will face four defenses currently allowing at least 50 receiving yards per game to tight ends, according to Football Outsiders.

A lot needs to go just right for the 49ers over the final seven weeks. And usually, a lot does go just right when the ball is in Davis’ hands.