Sept. 7, 2007

With his tremendous combination of size, strength and speed, Niners second-year TE Vernon Davis is widely considered on the cusp of a breakthrough season, with the Niners’ offense expected to take more advantage of his eye-popping skill set. So what’s the problem? In the words of one team insider, “The guy has a million-dollar game but a 10-cent head.” Davis the head case was on display in the Niners’ preseason finale against the Chargers in San Diego when he decided to imitate the sack dance made famous by San Diego’s Shawne Merriman after making a catch for a first down on his team’s third possession of the game. Davis' actions couldn’t have been more self-indulgent, and the Chargers’ partisan crowd wasted little time letting him know it with an outpouring of boos that only served to fire up the Chargers. Put simply, we hear the Niners are more than a little concerned about the lack of maturity and professionalism the emotional Davis seems to display far too often. According to our aforementioned insider, Davis “continues to show a combination of arrogance and ignorance that reminds a lot of people of the way Terrell Owens used to act when he was on the team.” Davis has talked the talk a lot more than walking the walk so far in his career, which has resulted in a fair amount of skepticism from a Niners fan base waiting anxiously to see him develop into the total package both physically and mentally before deciding to embrace him.