Maryland's well-defined Davis may well redefine his position

Vernon Davis has the numbers. In fact, they are more like NUMBERS, which is the way NFL scouts say it when what they're really trying to say is not the word ''numbers" but the word ''astonishing."

That's what the remarkable tight end from the University of Maryland is. Even by the athletic standards of the National Football League, which are Olympian, he is astonishing. All capital letters, if you'd like.

When the 6-foot-3-inch, 254-pound Davis was finished at the scouting combine workouts in Indianapolis two months ago, there was no significant measuring stick he had not exceeded in the way Secretariat exceeded the field at the Belmont Stakes, which is to say by a mile. Astonishing, even when written ASTONISHING, seemed an undervaluation of his gifts.

He ran what is believed to be a combine record for a tight end of 4.38 seconds for the 40-yard dash on his second try, meaning he ran 4.40 the first time and then got faster. His closest competitor at the position was Tony Scheffler of Western Michigan at 4.54, nearly two-tenths of a second slower, which, in NFL terms, is the difference between ''hello" and ''goodbye."

His vertical leap was an astounding 42 inches -- 4 1/2 inches more than Georgia's Leonard Pope, whom most scouts describe as a better athlete than football player at this stage of his development. Davis's broad jump was 10 feet 9 inches, nearly a foot longer than the next-best effort of 9-10 by Pope and UCLA's Marcedes Lewis.

And in case you're wondering whether he's fast but a light load of poles, understand that he put up 225 pounds 33 times, probably stopping only because the scouts needed to get some Visine before their eyes dried from bulging out of their heads.

But unlike others who have posted eye-popping numbers at February's annual NFL version of the decathlon, Vernon Davis is first and foremost not about the numbers. He's about catching footballs and then running with them, something he did 51 times last year for the Terrapins for an average of 17.1 yards per catch. Add that to the mix, NFL scouts say, and you have a lot more than someone the scouts would call a ''combine warrior." You have a force of nature.

''What he did at the combine wasn't a revelation," raved Baltimore Ravens director of college scouting Eric DeCosta. ''It was a verification. If you were just grading players on athleticism, there are four unbelievable athletes in this draft: Reggie Bush, Mario Williams, Antonio Cromartie, and Vernon Davis. On tape, he's one of the most impressive guys in the draft."

Because DeCosta's office is so near the Maryland campus, he saw Davis four times last season and each time he came away more impressed. It seemed Davis, only a junior, was improving each game and making clear that there was nothing left for him to prove in college football.

''Every time I saw him, he put on an absolute show," DeCosta said. ''He's big, fast, explosive, and strong as an ox. He's athletic like a receiver and powerful as a linebacker. That guy can take over a game.

''He has explosive speed and you've got to gang-tackle him. Some cornerback or safety trying will break in half. They can't tackle him."

A year ago, the Ravens signed a rookie free agent tight end named Rob Abiamiri who spent the year on the practice squad but is currently on their roster. He is a 240-pound guy who runs a 4.5 40, which would have been the second-best time at the combine this year. Yet he played sparingly at Maryland and went all but unnoticed until DeCosta saw him run a year ago at the Terrapins' Pro Day workouts.

''He ran a 4.5 and never played," DeCosta marveled. ''The reason he never played was Vernon Davis."

For those reasons and more, Davis is expected to be a top-10 pick, which is unusually high for a tight end. The last to go that high was Kellen Winslow Jr., whom the Cleveland Browns took with the sixth pick in 2004, but who has been stymied for two years with injuries. Davis already is being compared with Winslow, and even spoken of in higher regard by some.

''He's Antonio Gates, Jeremy Shockey, and Kellen Winslow all rolled into one," said Kansas City Chiefs vice president of personnel Bill Kuharich, who for the last five years has watched two guys considered the best pass-catching tight ends in football, Gates and the Chiefs' Tony Gonzalez. ''He can block like Shockey, run like Kellen, and catch like Gates. He's a different player than Tony. He's more physical but he can get down the seam. Davis is a guy you can play in tight or flex wide.

''Athletically, he went beyond my expectations at the combine. You don't expect a guy that big and strong to run that fast. Tight ends notoriously don't go in the top 10, but I don't see how he gets beyond Arizona [at No. 10] if he doesn't go higher. Imagine that offense with the running back [Edgerrin James], their receivers [Larry Fitzgerald and Anquan Boldin] and Davis. Oh, boy."

Many mock drafts have Davis going as high as No. 6 to the 49ers, although some teams believe San Francisco has so many problems it may have to pass on him to fill more pressing needs. But one rival NFC general manager said, ''You don't find tight ends who can run like that. Personnel guys knew him before the combine. They were already talking about him as a top-10 pick. Now, who knows how high he'll go? Whoever takes him is getting a football player, not just a combine guy."

That is a key difference, because nearly every year, some player who has been ''less than" during his collegiate days becomes ''more than" after them because he runs a phenomenal 40 time or puts on a show running shuttle drills and around three-cone alignments. Those drills say much about athletic ability, but when the cones are replaced by flesh-and-blood demons like Rodney Harrison and Joey Porter, running around them becomes a lot more complicated.

That's what separates Davis from mere athletes. He's shown during his 34-game career at Maryland that he is more than the sum of his numbers.

That's why he decided to leave school a year early even though the dream of his grandmother Adaline, who raised him and his five siblings, was that he complete the art degree he was on track to receive next year before turning professional. Davis understood that, but he also had a dream of his own. A dream to turn combine numbers into more marketable ones.

''I'm ready to get on with it," Davis said during the combine. ''My decision to come out early was based on my grade, the one I got back from the NFL. My coaches and I talked about it, and they said if I got a first-round grade, it would be best if I came out."

That was before Davis exploded at the combine the same way he did through the secondaries of the Atlantic Coast Conference, piling up the kind of receiving yardage normally expected from wide receivers half his size. After that, he had more than a first-round grade. He was on the combine honor roll.

''They all speak highly of me," Davis said of various NFL tight end coaches and offensive coordinators. ''They all say they would love to have me, but you never know. I do feel good about being labeled the new breed of tight end. That's what it is when you got a guy who can do more than catch the ball. Someone who can get extra yardage after catching the ball and make guys miss.

''At Maryland, my coach tried to find different ways to get me the ball. Options, coming up with creative plays. But they were mostly still the seven routes: the post corners and dig routes. You've got a tight end who can make moves like a wide receiver, when there's a linebacker on you, that's kind of a mismatch. That pretty much speaks for itself."

So do Vernon Davis's numbers, whether he's in pads or in shorts. They speak loud and clear, and they seem to say the same thing to every NFL scout who's watched him. To a man, it seems, they lead to a one-word conclusion about his NFL future: ASTONISHING!