Davis Didn't Follow His Brother To Maryland, but Will to the NFL
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When Vontae Davis saw his older brother, tight end Vernon Davis, banished to the San Francisco locker room in the middle of the game by Mike Singletary in the 49ers head coach's debut this past season, he made sure to learn a lesson about how to behave as a player and how to play the sport.
"I was like, 'Wow,' when I saw it," Vontae Davis said yesterday at the NFL scouting combine. "It made him a better person, and it made me a better person from learning from his mistake."
The younger Davis is a cornerback from Illinois and is projected to be a first-round pick in April's NFL draft after passing up his final season of college eligibility. He has plenty of ability, and he doesn't lack confidence, as he demonstrated yesterday when a reporter asked him whether he eventually will be a shut-down cornerback in the NFL like Nnamdi Asomugha, who just re-signed with the Oakland Raiders for $45 million over three seasons.
"In the long run, when it all gets said and done, I'll be in Nnamdi's shoes," Davis said.
He spoke warmly of his brother.
"He's my older brother so he'd always think he could bully me and do all this," said Davis, a D.C. native formerly of Dunbar High School. "But I respect that because I look up to him. He pushed me a lot through high school. He did things that made me be a better player. He woke me up at 5 o'clock in the morning to go throw the ball, and it helped."
But he didn't follow Vernon to the University of Maryland, he said, because he wanted to make a name for himself and didn't want to be known merely as Vernon Davis's younger brother.
"I didn't go to Maryland because I didn't want to go there because my brother went there," Davis said. "That's the biggest thing."
He hopes to emulate his brother's impressive scouting combine performance, which helped to elevate Vernon Davis to the sixth overall selection in the 2006 draft.
"I'm hoping," Davis said. "We've got the same genes."
ยท HEYWARD-BEY CLOCKS TOP TIME: University of Maryland wide receiver Darrius Heyward-Bey boosted his draft stock when he was timed at 4.3 seconds in his 40-yard dash at the NFL scouting combine.
