What if Vernon davis moved to WR?

If you think Vernon Davis should play wide receiver, you don't fully understand the intricacies of the game of football.

Vernon does not have the hands, hip fluidity, route running ability, or quickness to be an effective wr at the NFL level. He consistently catches with his body, is extremely tight in his hips, and has blown big play after big play due to an inability to follow a seemingly simple concept of dragging your feet near the sideline. Yes he is a GREAT TE because of the mismatch that he presents with his unusual speed and size combination.

The entire mismatch his game brings is that linebackers (who tend to struggle in coverage and would NEVER be asked to cover a wide receiver) struggle keeping up with his speed, but putting a cornerback on him in the interior would seriously expose them in the run game. If a team wanted to stop VD they would put a good sized cornerback on him and Gore would just burn them instead running to that side. By putting him on the outside, he becomes much less effective as a blocker and much easier to cover with a cb. What they should do is draft a TE like Fleener and pair him with VD in a 2 TE set. Delanie has not impressed and the diffference between Delanie and a mismatch TE (VD or Fleener) is night and day. This way we will have the speed and blocking mismatch provided by VD and the outlet/jump ball mismatch provided by Fleener.

I HATE that he doesn't catch the ball with his hands. He always cradles it.

And take away his blocking? The guy is phenomenal blocker on the line. From the the look of it they move him around quite often when needed anyway. He's already put in mismatches. No need to move a player from his pro bowl position is there?

Originally posted by Joecool:
I have an idea, why not keep him at TE but shift him wherever we want to get a mismatch.

what a great idea. but i think people here want to see him listed as a WR not a TE

The reason Vernon is one of the top TEs in the game is that on every down nobody knows what he is going to do.

He is, hands down, the best blocking TE in the league. And we know is among the best receiving as well.

He creates mismatches primarily due to his location on the field.

Do not f**k that up.

Davis is a match-up problem for teams that defend a TE in the traditional way of putting a LB or their slower safety on the TE due to his unusual speed as a TIGHT END. However, to use him as a WR is an entirely different matter. Vernon Davis simply does not have the agility to play as a WR. Just look at the kind of routes he runs: They are relatively simple "wheel" or circle routes where quick change of direction and adjustments to the ball are not required.

Davis has improved as a pass receiver the past two years but he is not even close to having the physical ability to play wide receiver. Mere speed is not enough to play the position.

Originally posted by 49oz2superbowl:
If you think Vernon Davis should play wide receiver, you don't fully understand the intricacies of the game of football.

Vernon does not have the hands, hip fluidity, route running ability, or quickness to be an effective wr at the NFL level. He consistently catches with his body, is extremely tight in his hips, and has blown big play after big play due to an inability to follow a seemingly simple concept of dragging your feet near the sideline. Yes he is a GREAT TE because of the mismatch that he presents with his unusual speed and size combination.

The entire mismatch his game brings is that linebackers (who tend to struggle in coverage and would NEVER be asked to cover a wide receiver) struggle keeping up with his speed, but putting a cornerback on him in the interior would seriously expose them in the run game. If a team wanted to stop VD they would put a good sized cornerback on him and Gore would just burn them instead running to that side. By putting him on the outside, he becomes much less effective as a blocker and much easier to cover with a cb. What they should do is draft a TE like Fleener and pair him with VD in a 2 TE set. Delanie has not impressed and the diffference between Delanie and a mismatch TE (VD or Fleener) is night and day. This way we will have the speed and blocking mismatch provided by VD and the outlet/jump ball mismatch provided by Fleener.

Excellent summation. I had not read this prior to my post above. This should answer the OP question very well.

i'm very excited to see how Vernon plays next year. He caught fire at the end of the year, when he admitted he finally digested and understood the playbook. He was a monster in the playoffs. If he keeps that up he can take his place as the best tight end in football.

Originally posted by okdkid:
The reason Vernon is one of the top TEs in the game is that on every down nobody knows what he is going to do.

He is, hands down, the best blocking TE in the league. And we know is among the best receiving as well.

He creates mismatches primarily due to his location on the field.

Do not f**k that up.

Yeah, and if you move him you bet your azz the protection/run game will beaffected.

I like VD at at TE, more than Walker,, with the size of TE's these days seems Walker is almost undersized, he is about the size we need a wide receiver to be,,, but can he run crisp routes and beat DB's,, probably not....

Originally posted by richierich:
He's also very good at blocking, which is why he's best suited for TE.

This. If he's a WR you don't get his blocking up the middle. You can still send him out on routes any time you want.

Originally posted by niteshade80:
I think Vernon Davis can play pretty much all of the ball handling positions, hb, te, wr, or fb if need be, he has the rare athletic ability that makes him extremely versatile. But I think if we had a game breaker WR, and another dominant interior offensive lineman to rotate in and out of the rotation, the 9ers in my opinion will be next year's super bowl champions. I think Crabtree is a good #2, if we can find a good #1, this team can be sick, lol.

Lets not get carried away. He can not play as hb lmao....

Why fix what is not broken! If hes one of the best blocking TE in the league and burning defenses like he did in the playoffs what more do you need? While were at it let's move P. Willis to TE so we have two guys that are uncomfortable with what they are doing lol

What if that happened?

I would think Nolan must have come back as head coach if that happened.

Originally posted by KEGster:
Well if there is one guy that loves his TE's....it's Harbaugh. Check out what he built at Stanford with his TE's

I'd rather see us go towards 2 TE's than moving Davis to WR

In short, this....

I've seen this thread before....

Talk about a deja vu!

- 98