SANTA CLARA, Calif. – When Colin Kaepernick made his stunning debut as an NFL starting quarterback last November, performing so prolifically that he would supplant Alex Smith atop the San Francisco 49ers' depth chart and spark a Super Bowl run, Vernon Davis played a pivotal role, catching six passes for 83 yards and a touchdown.

Three days after that productive Monday Night Football performance in a win over the Chicago Bears, the Niners' talented tight end enjoyed a Thanksgiving feast. Then famine set in: Over the final six games of the regular season, Davis caught a grand total of six passes for 61 yards without reaching the end zone.

During that perplexing stretch, Lennay Kekua was less invisible than the former Pro Bowler.

View photos

Yet Davis never turned negative, displaying the maturity and perspective the sixth overall pick of the 2006 draft lacked early in his career. Back then, the player who former Niners coach Mike Singletary notoriously sent to the showers during his trou-dropping 2008 coaching debut wouldn't have handled such a dry spell well.

[Also: Chip Kelly can look to Jimmy Johnson for inspiration]



"As the team was winning and having success, I'd probably have been the one complaining," Davis said Thursday as he sat in a small office at the 49ers' training facility, where he and his teammates were preparing for the franchise's first Super Bowl appearance in 18 years . "I would have probably been in the media, making a scene, going to the coach and just being a cancer to the team."



With just one team, the AFC champion Baltimore Ravens, standing between the Niners and a championship – they'll meet Feb. 3 at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans – no San Francisco player symbolizes the organization's transformation from stupor to Super as much as the seventh-year tight end.

While Davis might be a tad excessive in his self-punitive assessment, there's little doubt that he has undergone a dramatic attitude adjustment. A man once spotted by teammates admiring his oiled-up physique in the mirror before a game (and blowing kisses to his massive biceps) now takes pride in the less conspicuous elements of his craft.

Even in the wake of his resounding re-emergence – a five-reception, 106-yard, one-touchdown effort that helped the Niners fight back from a 17-point deficit to defeat the Atlanta Falcons in last Sunday's NFC championship game – Davis insists he's just as fulfilled by opening holes for running back Frank Gore, keeping pass rushers away from Kaepernick or serving as a decoy to create openings for other receivers, as long as the team keeps winning.

"I didn't go into that game thinking I was gonna have a big day," Davis said. "A big day for me is blocking. Throughout the season, I had a chance to relate to that – the blocking game and pass protection. It took time, but over the course of the season it kind of grew on me. I was like, ‘We're winning, and I am a big piece of this.'"

Early on in his career, Davis was portrayed as a piece of something else entirely. When Singletary took over the Niners in October of 2008, the former Hall of Fame middle linebacker singled out Davis for his selfishness, and the two clashed almost immediately.

Of getting sent to the locker room in Singletary's first game on the sidelines, and the coach's subsequent "Cannot win with 'em" postgame news-conference rant, Davis says, "It was pretty embarrassing for me. I'm not gonna lie about that. I know everyone was thinking, ‘Hey, where's Vernon going? Why is he sending him to the locker room?'I was like, ‘These guys might really kick me out of here if I don't get my act together.'"

Story continues