Most afternoons, he sat alone in the back corner of the Indianapolis Colts locker room, eating alone while his teammates gathered for lunch in the cafeteria. He didn’t seem bothered by the hustle and bustle around him – loud music, reporters mingling, players shouting as practice approached.
Vontae Davis slumped silently on his stool, his back to the room, eating his food from a Styrofoam takeout box. The scene spoke to his role on the field — a lockdown cornerback, Davis often worked on an island, isolated in man-to-man coverage against the opposition’s deadliest wide receiver. There was little room for error. Being beaten usually meant a touchdown.
The job was both thankless and unforgiving, among the most grueling in professional football. It was as much mental work as physical work. Most teams weren’t – and still aren’t – willing to leave their top corner alone, without any security help, because most simply aren’t good enough.
At his best, Vontae Davis was.
“If you want a cornerback to play on an island,” he once told me, “I’m the makeup of that.”
The former first-round pick went 25 straight games without allowing a touchdown in coverage. In 2014, opposing quarterbacks posted a passer rating of 38.8 when throwing. For a brief period in this season, arguably the best of Davis’ 10-year career, some QBs stopped looking his direction altogether, including during a Week 4 win over the Titans in which Davis didn’t was not launched at a single time.
Forty-three shots. Zero targets. Half the field cleared by a single player. Chuck Pagano, his coach at the time, would call it the equivalent of a starting cornerback throwing a perfect game.
Davis made two Pro Bowls. He was the best player on the field in the Colts’ biggest playoff victory of the post-Peyton Manning era, a 24-13 upset over Manning’s Broncos in the 2014 divisional round. loved by his teammates – his high-pitched voice that they couldn’t understand half the time, his 1,000-watt smile that lit up every meeting room, his kind personality that touched everyone in the building.
This is the Davis I knew during his six seasons in Indianapolis. He was a character in his own right, as comfortable running back in front of 63,000 fans as he was sitting silently in the quiet of the locker room.
Davis would fight with receivers on the practice field after losing a rep, then hug them. He could be both introverted and insightful in conversation. On match days he could be light and loose one minute – dancing in the huddle before kick-off, dancing with his teammates – then a menace as soon as the ball was snapped, biting anyone who tested him.
But beneath the fiery Sunday exterior, Davis was a good-hearted kid who was raised by his grandmother. He was infinitely polite and always welcoming, even to curious journalists who interrupted his lunch from time to time.
That’s why, for many, Monday’s news that Davis was found dead at his South Florida home was devastating. For his close-knit family, including his older brother Vernon, a longtime NFL tight end who Vontae always admired. For the teammates who loved him and who learned by watching him work. For the coaches who watched him go from the abandoned Miami Dolphin to one of the best corners in the game in Indianapolis.
“Such a tragedy,” texted Pagano, who was instrumental in reviving Davis’ career after his breakout in Miami and trade to the Colts in 2012.
“I still can’t believe it,” added former defensive captain D’Qwell Jackson. “He was like my little brother.”
“I don’t want to believe you’re gone,” TY Hilton wrote on X.
Sad day. We fought every day in training. Sometimes it ended in quarrels and almost fights. 😂😢. We have improved. It was a pleasure to carry the horseshoe with you buddy. Rest easy, “Champion.” Pray for your family and loved ones. 🙏🏾🙏🏾 🙏🏾RIP #VD21 pic.twitter.com/zfb8efeX2o
– Reggie Wayne (@ReggieWayne_17) April 1, 2024
At this point, teammates and coaches are asking the same questions as the rest of us after Davie (Fl.) officers responded to an emergency call from Davis’ assistant early Monday morning. Preliminary information suggests foul play was “not involved,” according to authorities. Davis was only 35 years old. The investigation remains active.
During his playing years, I always thought Davis’ reputation around the league belied the calm, compassionate person he was behind the scenes. His reaction to the news that the Dolphins were trading him, filmed by HBO’s “Hard Knocks” cameras, gone viral. “I’m going to call my grandmother,” was his first instinct. That’s pretty much all anyone knew him for.
But he had much more to do, and this change of scenery changed the course of his career.
Davis matured in Indy thanks in large part to Pagano, who taught him how to be a pro. In training, he fought Hilton and Reggie Wayne and made them both better. With longtime defensive stalwart Robert Mathis sidelined in 2014 after a ruptured Achilles tendon, Davis carried the unit to the AFC title game, making eight tackles and five passes defended in that divisional playoff win over the Broncos.
He battled nagging injuries throughout his career, rarely missing a start. At one point near the end of the 2016 season, Davis had only practiced 14 times since training camp ended, dealing with an ankle injury, a concussion, another injury to the ankle, then a pull to the groin.
Somehow he only missed two games.
His teammates came to salute his tenacity. And over time, Davis realized what had held him back early in his career: himself.
“When I think of Miami, I sit down and laugh,” he once told me. “It’s crazy to me how far we’ve come since then.”
His exit from Indianapolis was messy. When an elite cornerback loses his top speed, the rest goes fast, and Davis’ play slipped during the 2017 season. The Colts benched him. Davis expressed his frustrations to the media, then opted to have groin surgery against the team’s wishes. The Colts cut him a day later.
Davis signed a one-year, $5 million contract with the Bills during the following offseason, looking for a reboot. Then, with Buffalo leading 28-6 in the first half of the Week 2 game against the Chargers, he decided he was done, then and there. A few minutes before halftime, he headed to the locker room and took off his uniform one last time.
He was in street clothes before the start of the third quarter. He drove home and never looked back. Teammates and coaches were stunned. Davis insisted in interviews that he was at peace.
“He retired, wrote a check to the organization like, ‘Hey, I’m moving on with my life,'” former team member Darius Butler said Monday on “The Pat McAfee Show.” “He kind of lived his life to the beat of his own drum. »
On his own Instagram, Davis made fun at his expense. “Former NFL cornerback, two-time Pro Bowler and retired halftime sensation in 2018,” he wrote.
We are devastated to learn of the passing of Vontae Davis. He will be deeply missed and we send our prayers to his family and loved ones. pic.twitter.com/K10FdaLmNV
– Indianapolis Colts (@Colts) April 1, 2024
Perhaps Davis struggled to find purpose after the football ended. He would not be alone on this front. He nevertheless kept in touch with his former teammates. Hilton wrote that they used FaceTime “a few weeks ago.” Jackson said they talked often.
McAfee and Butler tried to keep it together on their Monday show, aware that news could leak out while they were live on air. When this happened, they fought against their own emotions to pay their respects. “If you knew him, you loved him and appreciated him immensely,” McAfee said.
“I will always remember him,” Butler added.
Pagano echoed the sentiment of so many people stunned and shaken after learning they had lost one of their own.
“Devastating and heartbreaking news,” Pagano wrote on X. “My thoughts and prayers are with the Davis family. It was an absolute honor and privilege to be his coach at Indy. A great player but a better person. I loved him like a son. RIP Vontae.
(Photo of Davis, left, and Darius Butler: Zach Bolinger/Getty Images)