No one was more surprised that Vontae Davis was traded from the Dolphins to the Colts over the weekend than Vontae Davis.
On this week’s episode of Hard Knocks, Dolphins General Manager Jeff Ireland called Davis into his office and informed him that he was heading to the Colts. Davis looked shocked and was speechless for a moment before saying, “I want to call my grandma.”
Hard Knocks was only privy to the Dolphins’ side of the trade, so we didn’t see how badly Colts owner Jim Irsay and General Manager Ryan Grigson wanted Davis. But with the Hard Knocks cameras in the Dolphins’ headquarters, it appeared that the Dolphins’ coaching staff wouldn’t be sorry to see Davis go. As the coaching staff discussed Davis’s performance in last week’s preseason game, one coach said of Davis’s pass interference penalty, “I’ve never seen anything like it: Just a total lack of football awareness.”
Dolphins head coach Joe Philbin, who in a previous episode of Hard Knocks got on Davis’s case about not being completely focused at practice, seemed skeptical that Davis will ever make the most of his physical talents.
“I like the kid -- I do -- but I’m wondering if we’re ever going to be able to get him where we’d like him to be,” Philbin said of Davis.
Still, Ireland appeared to be driving a hard bargain with the Colts. At one point he was shown talking to the Colts’ front office on the phone and saying, “It has to be something that’s going to blow me away.”
Eventually, the offer of a second-round pick and a conditional sixth-round pick for Davis did, in fact, blow the Dolphins away. And so we were left with Ireland and Davis together in Ireland’s office. As shocked as Davis was by the news, he took it well. And as he left the office, Ireland told him, “I want you to have a great career.”
With that, they hugged, and Davis left the Dolphins’ facilities for the last time.