After watching Seahawks tight end Zach Miller tee off on the Falcons last week, 49ers tight end Vernon Davis couldn’t put the remote down.
Miller caught eight passes for 142 yards and a touchdown against the Falcons the week before, the kind of performance Davis could only dream about.
“I actually watched game three times in two days because I was so excited about that tight end, what he did,” Davis said, via Matt Maiocco of CSNBay Area.com. “You never know. You just have to be prepared.”
Davis has been prepared, but he was finally invited to do something.
He caught five passes for 105 yards and a touchdown in the 49ers NFC Championship win over the Falcons.
That matched his stats over his previous seven games (seven receptions for 105 yards, with no scores).
“We always tell Vernon, ‘Sooner or later, my friend, it’s coming,’” 49ers offensive coordinator Greg Roman said. “And it came today.”
With the Falcons concentrating their downfield coverage on wide receiver Michael Crabtree, Davis was often in single coverage, the kind he can normally exploit. But since Colin Kaepernick took over at quarterback, those matchups hadn’t been there often, and Davis was the forgotten man.
Until Sunday, and now he has a game of his own to rewind, and watch again and again.