Vernon Davis : 49ers TE Press Conference After Super Bowl XLVII

Vernon Davis is the San Francisco 49ers star tight end, and a man who this blogger expected to play a huge role in Super Bowl XLVII. In this video, the idea was that the 49ers could get Davis open on a “wheel route” and that did happen, only to have QB Colin Kaepernick miss him by inches.

Later, after the close 31 to 34 loss to the Baltimore Ravens, Vernon Davis talked to the media, and to his credit, gave long answers.

Here’s Vernon:

49ers TE Vernon Davis

(on what more the team could have done to win the game) “Just win. It’s a tough situation to be in because we expected ourselves to win, but we couldn’t pull it off. Like I told the guys, I’m extremely proud of all that we’ve done up to this point. We’ve got to look at this as a blessing because we didn’t have to be here, but we made it. We’ve always got next year; we’ve got next season. We might as well look forward to next season, keep our hopes high and continue to climb.”

(on what happened on the play he hurt his elbow) “A stinger. It was just a stinger. I had to come out for a second.”

(on if he wishes they did anything differently when they got to the 5- yard line at the end of the game) “All I could think of was maybe running a different play, but that’s just a player mentality. Greg Roman, he calls the shots; we have to go with it, we have to respect what’s called. He believed in it, we believed in it, but it just didn’t work.”

(on if he was confident that they could pull off the comeback) “Yeah we believed that we’d come back. That’s just the way to be. You have to believe and just attack it, and we did. I think we did a terrific job as far as trying to keep our composure and stay under control and make plays.”

(on if there was something about the Ravens defense that enabled him and Michael Crabtree to get open) “Maybe their defense. They probably changed their schemed up a little bit. There were holes open, so we took advantage of them. I know one play I had to run up the seam and Crab (Crabtree) came out, then he turned up — we call it a sting route — and he made the play. Other times, I would get open, then Crabtree would get open and then they found Randy Moss a couple times. Not to mention Delanie Walker; he got open.”

(on if he believes the Ravens defense was tired in the second half) “I think they probably got a little tired. But, they played hard. I take my hat off to those guys because they played a great football game. They gave us all they had, and we gave them all we had. But, at the end of the day, someone has to lose and someone has to win.”

(on if QB Colin Kaepernick was ready for the moment) “I think Kap was ready for the moment. I can’t hesitate about that because I’ve always believed in Kaepernick since day one. I always thought that he had the talent and the mind to be a leader; not only a leader, but a winner on this stage. I thought he did a terrific job and I’m excited about his future.”

(on if he had a message for the team) “No I didn’t have too much to say. I was just trying to get myself together, keep myself under control and just think about where I’d go from here. There’s always tomorrow, the day after that and the next day. So right now I’m going to start getting excited about next year.”

(on when he started to develop chemistry with Kaepernick) “It really started to turn on for me and Kap in practice when we had a lot of opportunities to connect and put it all together. I think that’s what we did. Like I said before, I’m extremely excited about his future and I look forward to getting together with Kap more often.”

(on why the team looked different after the lights in the stadium went back on) “Well, in a game like this you have to put it all on the line. You have to be willing to die for your teammates if it came down to it. We saw the opportunity and we thought about it during halftime, and when we came out, we knew it was on the line. We had to give it all we had, because if we didn’t, it wasn’t going to happen. That’s why I say that I’m extremely proud of my teammates for what they did out there tonight.”

(on if he thought Kaepernick was going to bring the team back) “Yeah. Like I said, I’ve always believed in Kap. I’ve always been a big Kaepernick fan, and I know what he can do. He’s poised, he wants to have success and he will do anything it takes to get us there.”

(on if the power outage in the stadium impacted the 49ers second half performance) “As far as the power going out, that didn’t change anything for us. I think some of the things that we realized during halftime in the locker room, we put it all out on the field. The talk from Coach (Jim) Harbaugh and us realizing the opportunity that we had, that’s pretty much it.”

(on if he was disappointed that he did not get the ball on the 49ers’ last series of the game) “No, I’m not disappointed. The ball went somewhere else; I expected my teammate to make the play—whoever Kap decided to throw it to. So the only thing that I can be disappointed about is losing the game. I’m not disappointed at all, (it’s) just about losing this game. That’s all.”

(on if the Ravens defense covered him differently on the last series of the game) “They had a guy on me. When I went out wide, they put a corner on me. That’s pretty much it. They were looking at us. They had their eyes on Crabtree, they had eyes on me, and like I said, they played a great game.”

(on if the referees should have thrown a flag on the 49ers’ last offensive play) “I definitely thought they would throw a flag, but they didn’t. This is football, it’s the National Football League, and you’ve got to expect these kinds of things to happen. There’s nothing we can do to change the hands of time. What’s done is done.”

(on his thoughts when things started to click down the stretch) “I just thought that we would win this game. We started making plays, the defense got the turnover, we came back out and we had a great drive. At that moment I just said, ‘We got this. I got this. All we have to do is get the ball back in our hands and we can make it happen.’”

(on what they did differently during their comeback) “I think we just took advantage of the opportunities. Every opportunity that we got, we made something happen. That’s what this game is about; it’s about capitalizing on your opportunities in critical situations. This team, we’ve been down that road before: last year with the Philadelphia Eagles and this year with the Falcons. We’ve been in this position, so we know what we had with this team. All we had to do was believe and we believed.”

(on what it was like in the locker room during halftime) “Guys were saying, ‘Come on, come on, let’s go. We have to believe. We have to keep our spirits high.’ Everybody was talking – a little bit from the defense and a little bit from the offense. (Jim) Harbaugh came in and guys just had this look on their face like, ‘We can do it. We can do it.’ Not too many words said, but we just had this look on our face like, ‘We know what we’re in for. We know we can come back and keep this thing alive.’”

-SB XLVII