Vernon Davis, Former San Francisco 49ers Tight End

The biggest game of the year, the Super Bowl, is on Odyssey.

And Westwood One brings it to you, streaming live for free, Sunday, February 12th on the Odyssey app. The Eagles have been the NFC's best team. Touchdown, Travis Kelce! It's the Eagles versus the Chiefs.

The Kansas City Chiefs, the Philadelphia Eagles, are going to the Super Bowl again. Catch all the action from Westwood One. Your Super Bowl, your Odyssey.

Get in the game and download the free Odyssey app today. We continue this Zach Gelb show coast-to-coast on CBS Sports Radio. We inch closer and closer to Super Bowl 57. And now joining us here is a Super Bowl 50 champion.

He played tight end for many years of the National Football League and Vernon Davis is here today on behalf of Smirnoff and the cocktail coordinator. Vernon, great to see you as always. How you been? Good, good. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

I appreciate you coming on. I got to start you off with your Niners. It was an unfortunate ending to their season in Philadelphia. You have the Brock Purdy injury, but everyone wants to know, next year, and maybe Purdy's gonna be out six months, you got the future of Trey Lance, just what are your thoughts on the future of their quarterback position?

Well, that's a great question. I mean, everyone's asking because they have three outstanding quarterbacks that we know of and we don't know what's gonna happen, but I believe that the San Francisco 49ers should give Trey Lance an opportunity to get back to where he was because this guy has a lot of upside. He's going to feel like he's going to prove everybody wrong. He's gonna show that he's continuing to evolve and this time that he has a way from the game. It's going to allow him to be even better as a quarterback and a leader. That's fascinating point because he basically hasn't played consistently for the last three seasons because he didn't play his final year in college because of COVID, barely played his rookie season, unfortunately got hurt this year.

What what really makes you believe that he'll be better with this time kind of on the sidelines and being away from the game and watching it from a different view? Well, when I was when I go back to when I was a young guy when I first came to the NFL and my first injury that first year and I was able to step away, I wasn't playing exactly the way I was supposed to be playing and the media and everyone around started calling me a bust. It was like he's not gonna live up to his expectations but during that time when I was injured I had a chance to see everything that was going on, everything that I that I was doing wrong.

I grew. I wanted to seek information. I wanted to get better as a player and I challenged myself and I knew that if I did it getting to where I think I should have been, then it wasn't gonna work out for me. That's how I programmed myself and as a player I think as a competitor you think that way. You always think that the next man behind you is going to move in front of you if you don't do your job. You have this faith and you know that you're gonna do your job but there's always that on your mind. It's like the good guy here, the bad guy here, right? And I think that's a great thing because it allows you to be better when you go back out there because you have something to prove. You want to show everybody that, hey, I can do this and you and you learn a thing or two from watching.

Observing it can be the best teaching, you know, because you observe and you watch the next man in front of you or the guy that's behind you when you're down and you know that the only way for you to come back up is to prove everyone wrong and show them that you could play this game at the highest level possible. So I believe that Trey Lance has that in his DNA and I think that he's going to be one of those guys to come back with the vengeance and show the 49ers organization as well as the rest of the NFL that he has what it takes to be that dynamic quarterback. Was there any part of you, Vernon Davis, yesterday when you see the Brady announcement that he retired a little bit disappointed because there were some rumors that Brady maybe wanted to go to the 49ers and maybe there could have been some mutual interest there.

You know what, I was a little astounded because I was thinking I'll say, hey, if Brady goes over I'm gonna go join George Kittle. I'm gonna see what I got. Love to play with the GOAT. Let's go.

Do you think you can still play? Oh come on, man. I tell myself that the average student that's here 10 years old, he's always challenging me. I have to be better than him. He can't outperform me and I tell him that all the time. He's playing tight at the math at senior high school. You're gonna hear about him this year.

He's going into the 10th grade but he's always challenging me so I got to go out there. I got to be able to run route. I got to be able to run, you know. So I, you know, when I'm working out, I work out five days a week. I'm always doing the things that I did when I was playing football.

Not necessarily using the heavy weight that I used to use but I'm sprinting, pushing sleds and I'm just making sure that I can stay dynamic. Merton Davis here with us. We'll talk about Smirnoff in just a second. So we all know your brother Vante also played in the NFL. You have this Super Bowl. You have Travis Kelce going up against Jason Kelce. Can you even imagine what they're going through? You got two brothers going up against one another in two weeks in the Super Bowl. Yes, like who do you root for?

If I'm there, mom or dad, I'm like gosh, what do we do? Oh, I got to have a good idea. I just thought about this. Maybe they wear half of the jersey is Kansas City, right?

And the other app is Philadelphia. She already has that jersey, the mother. Donna Kelce already has that jersey. She's a veteran.

She's ready to go. This tight end match up though, it is fascinating because we all know what Travis Kelce has done for the last few years, but Dallas Goddard, other than we had to miss a few games because he got hurt, he was on pace to have a masterful season. What do you think about this tight end match up with Travis Kelce and Dallas Goddard? Yeah, I think Dallas is a good tight end. I think he's very reliable, accountable. He's gonna be everywhere he needs to be.

I mean, especially in this game, you have to be. The mindset has to be different and I know that he's going to be that for the team, but Travis Kelce is in a whole other league of his own. He's been around for a while. He has experience.

He's been doing this. He's been to playoff games. He's been to Super Bowl. He's won a Super Bowl and he's one of the best tight ends to do it, in my opinion, so far. I mean, he just has to keep on trucking.

I think his top four or five, top five in touchdowns are all overall. It's gonna be a showdown. It's gonna be great. For you, you look back at your two Super Bowl experiences. We all remember when you were with the 49ers and unfortunately lost up against the Ravens and then you got traded to Denver and I know Frank Gore says, oh, you didn't really win that Super Bowl, but you did with the Broncos.

How do you look back at those two experiences? I'm about to give Frank Gore a call and tell him about his business. He still brings that up to you, right?

Yeah, I hope he's listening, but yeah, now he's fine. We're always giving each other a hard time, but I'm very grateful, very grateful for the opportunity to be able to to win a Super Bowl before I decided to hang it up. It's hard. It's few or far between because there's been guys that has played this game for years and never even won a Super Bowl and I think Tequila Spikes is one of them, if I'm not mistaken, but yeah, it's just hard.

It's tough. So to be able to to walk away with a ring is a beautiful thing and to win it with a great group of guys. I mean that locker room in Denver was truly amazing. Peyton Manning, DeMark is where some of the two of the most beautiful human beings I've ever seen and Peyton's probably going to text me. If he hears me talking about him, he's going to text me. He texted me about a couple months ago. I said something beautiful about it. He said, thank you for your photos. I hear his voice. For the whole room, I was worried about you.

I can't remember. Did they get you in the Manning cast yet? They got to get you the Manning cast, right? I got to get on the Manning cast.

I got to get on the Manning cast. Maybe after my movie comes out, I'll go in there and talk about it. What's the movie you got coming out? It's a movie with Morgan Freeman and I. It's coming out between now and March. I'm waiting on it. Yeah, it's gonna be pretty cool. I play a serial killer from South Africa.

My name is Andoku. What's that experience like? How do you recap that? Oh, man, I had anxiety after that. It was crazy. I mean, it's just because, you know, as a trained actor, you're trained to live realistically in that moment. So for me, I'm thinking that I'm actually doing these killings.

So after I got done with the movie, I came home and I was like, wow, I need to find a therapist. It was tough. But yeah, yeah. But it's cool, though.

It's cool. The journey is cool. You get to learn a lot about yourself. You get to meet wonderful people like Morgan and Cole Howser. I spent time with them. It was beautiful.

I feel like I'm living in two different worlds right now. You know, I went from football to now I'm doing this and other things. It's pretty cool, man. I'm really grateful and honored. Tell me, Vernon Davis, what you're doing today on behalf of Smirnoff and the Cocktail Coordinator. Look, I'm letting you guys. This is all about the Cocktail Coordinator. Best job in America. We're flying, we're flying them down privately.

They're going to spend time with me on Radio Row. And we've been excited about this because there's only one left. You know, it's one remain out of all of the contestants that we had. And to be a Cocktail Coordinator, you have to bring your very best, just like anything else. You have to, you have to come with it.

And the individual that we identified is unbelievable. So I'm happy, excited about that. It's going to be epic. I can't wait. It'll be truly amazing. I know you got to run, but early Super Bowl prediction, you're going with the Eagles or you're going with the Chiefs? Going with the Eagles.

How about that? That's, Jalen Hurts has been a great story this year. I love rooting for him. Yeah, he's talented.

He's truly talented. The biggest game of the year, the Super Bowl, is on Odyssey. And Westwood One brings it to you, streaming live for free, Sunday, February 12th, on the Odyssey app. The Eagles have been the NFC's best team. Touchdown, Travis Kelce! It's the Eagles versus the Chiefs.

The Kansas City Chiefs, the Philadelphia Eagles, are going to the Super Bowl again. Catch all the action from Westwood One. Your Super Bowl, your Odyssey. Get in the game and download the free Odyssey app today. The biggest game of the year, the Super Bowl, is on Odyssey.

And Westwood One brings it to you, streaming live for free, Sunday, February 12th, on the Odyssey app. The Eagles have been the NFC's best team. Touchdown, Travis Kelce! It's the Eagles versus the Chiefs.

The Kansas City Chiefs, the Philadelphia Eagles, are going to the Super Bowl again. Catch all the action from Westwood One. Your Super Bowl, your Odyssey. Get in the game and download the free Odyssey app today. The biggest game of the year, the Super Bowl, is on Odyssey.

And Westwood One brings it to you, streaming live for free, Sunday, February 12th, on the Odyssey app. The Eagles have been the NFC's best team. Touchdown, Travis Kelce! It's the Eagles versus the Chiefs. The Kansas City Chiefs, the Philadelphia Eagles, are going to the Super Bowl again. Catch all the action from Westwood One. Your Super Bowl, your Odyssey. Get in the game and download the free Odyssey app today.