The last two times the Seahawks and the 49ers have met, Seattle has made a very strong statement. San Francisco tight end Vernon Davis sees Sunday as his team’s chance to return the favor.
“Any time you play a team and you lose, the next opportunity you get to play them again, it’s definitely a statement game,” Davis said Tuesday, via Jimmy Durkin of the San Jose Mercury News.
The goal apparently will be to make a statement quickly.
“We have to go into this game playing hard, playing fast,” Davis said. “We want to make some noise right away. That’s going to be the challenge for us.”
Mustering a healthy dose of hatred will be a challenge for neither team.
“It might be the most intense game this season, because those guys don’t like us, and we don’t like them,” Davis said.
A far more intense third installment could be pending, if the two teams meet in the playoffs for the first time ever. But while a team that plays in Seattle every year should, in theory, be the best equipped to pull a postseason upset, the Niners have been blown out the last two times they’ve played there.
That makes Sunday’s game no less intense, which should prompt Davis to choose better protection for a certain area that was grabbed during the team’s most recent game. Davis said Tuesday that he has “just a few abrasions left” in that place.