I just promoted marcello's FanShot with a great article about Singletary's post-game locker room meeting and the general message being passed along. The best quote from that article:
“There are some people in this room that don’t need to be here,” Singletary said pointedly. “We’ve got guys in here that are cancers. The thing about cancer cells is, they multiply. We’ve got to cut them out.”
Speaking of cancers, there were plenty of questions in the postgame press conference about everyone's favorite whipping boy, Vernon Davis. If you missed the game, Davis got called for a personal foul after flicking Brian Russell's facemask. Singletary had him come off the field and there was an exchange that led to Vernon being told to go to the locker room. According to the Yahoo article above, when he was pulled off the field, Vernon said, “You don’t need to be sayin’ nothin’ to me right now." Needless to say, Samurai Mike did not take to kindly to that. In the post game press conference, he and Davis were asked about it:
Mike Singletary
“Vernon just….It was something that I told everybody at the very beginning of the week: I will not tolerate players that think it’s about them when it’s about the team. And we cannot make…we cannot make decisions that cost the team and then come off [to] the sideline and it’s nonchalant. No. You know what? This is how I believe. I’m from the old school. I believe this: I would rather play with 10 people and just get penalized all the way until we got to do something else, rather than play with 11 when I know that right now that person is not sold out to be a part of this team.
It is more about them than it is about the team. Cannot play with them. Cannot win with them. Cannot coach with them. Can’t do it. I want winners. I want people that want to win. Go ahead . . . I told him that he would do a better job for us right now taking a shower and coming back and watching the game than going out on the field. Simple as that.”
Vernon Davis
“I made a play, tapped the guy on his chin — I didn’t mean anything by it — but they called a flag. He was talking trash, of course. I didn’t take it personally — I wasn’t swinging or anything. I just did like this. I came back to the sideline and Coach [Singletary] said, ‘Vernon, you can’t do that, you have to be smart.’ Coach Singletary told me to go sit down, and after a while, he told me to just take a shower and take it in. He’s a good coach. Coach Singletary is an emotional guy, just like myself. He wants to win, and I did exactly what he told me to do. He is the head coach, and I listen to him. He just told me to come in, and I went in.
On whether he was surpised by the move: “Yeah, it did. I didn’t know what was going on. I already know about Coach Singletary. He wants to win, and he’s a hard-working guy. He won’t tolerate anything.”
On whether he thinks he did anything wrong: “No. Not in my eyes. I don’t think I did anything wrong. If the coach thinks I did something wrong, then I have to listen to him. He’s the boss.”
On the one hand Davis clearly recognizes Singletary is the boss. On the other hand, he doesn't really admit any wrong-doing. I'm not sure whether that means he'll figure things out in the course of the next two weeks. I'd imagine (or at least I hope) he and Singletary will have a sitdown and hash all the crap out.
Delanie Walker is getting an MRI today so who knows how healthy he'll be in two weeks for Arizona. If he's out, I hardly expect to see Billy Bajema starting at tight end. So if Vernon is in fact back in the starting lineup in two Sundays, what will the end result be? Getting kicked off the field by Singletary isn't going to make him catch the ball any easier. At the same time, maybe he'll focus the next two weeks on the team and do whatever it takes to help the team succeed.
Nobody knows what will happen beyond this season in regards to Vernon Davis, but I'm curious what people think will happen over the remaining eight games of the season. I really don't think Vernon Davis is a bad guy. It appears that Nolan simply gave him too much freedom to be a pain in the ass. With a guy like Singletary in charge, Davis will either man up and do his job or completely rebel and be lost. As that Yahoo article said (in regards to the team as a whole), I don't know if there's really any middle ground.