The San Francisco 49ers won’t call it a quarterback controversy, yet. Instead, the Niners claim that they simply want to figure out what they have in Nate Davis, a fifth-round pick in 2009 who has struggled in practice but who has played well against scrubs in preseason games.
And so offensive coordinator Jimmy Raye said Wednesday that Davis will get reps earlier in the next two preseason games, in order to see what he can do against a higher caliber of player.
The process begins on Sunday night against the Vikings. (On NBC.)
“The one ability that he has is highlighted in the parts of the game he plays in,” Raye said, per Matt Barrows of the Sacramento Bee. “Because if a guy is open, he’ll hit him, he’ll get the ball to them. He’s another guy who’s in a position where he needs to play early on against guys who have played in the NFL. He needs to play in that level. . . . In the second and third exhibition game, we will experiment with some of that.”
Against the Colts on Sunday, Davis completed five of six passes for 84 yards, good for a passer rating of 118.8. In the 2009 preseason, Davis completed 29 of 49 passes for 314 yards, with two touchdowns and an interception, which equated to a passer rating of 83.2.
So while Davis does not yet represent a threat to starter Alex Smith, the No. 1 pick in the 2005 draft generated a passer rating of 7.4 against the Colts. If he performs like that in the regular season, the Niners eventually will need to move on to Plan B, and it makes sense to figure out whether Davis would be a better fallback option than David Carr.