Davis Webb’s offseason was headed one of two ways.
Either Sean Payton would hire him as Denver’s quarterbacks coach or he was going to try to play quarterback again in 2023.
Not exactly a traditional fork in the road, mind you, but Webb hoped to make the jump into coaching.
“When I interviewed, I told myself, my girlfriend, my family, ‘If I don’t get this job, I’m going to start working out tomorrow,’” he said Wednesday in his first time talking with reporters since landing the job earlier this year. “This was a one-and-done deal. I wanted this job really, really bad and if I got it I was going to roll with it and if I didn’t, I was going to keep playing and be a free agent.”
Webb, 28, now finds himself in charge of a room featuring Russell Wilson at the top and Jarrett Stidham in the No. 2 spot. Webb turned down Buffalo’s quarterback coaching job a year ago to play in 2022 back in New York for Giants head coach Brian Daboll, who had been Webb’s offensive coordinator in Buffalo.
“I really wanted to play another year, go with Coach Daboll to New York and help him build that foundation,” he said.
So why, just weeks after throwing 40 passes off the bench for the Giants in a Week 18 game, was he hoping to land a job in which he’s tasked with helping Wilson bounce back from the worst year of his career?
“I get to learn from a gold jacket quarterback, gold jacket head coach and get to help Russell Wilson get back to where he wants to be,” Webb said flatly, referring to the color bestowed on NFL Hall of Fame blazers. “Every great athlete has had some sort of great year, off year, above average year, fantastic year. His consistency over his career all the way dating to college has been phenomenal.”
Webb played in the same quarterback room as Patrick Mahomes for two years in college at Texas Tech. He backed up Eli Manning with the Giants and Josh Allen in Buffalo. He said he’s spent the past six or seven years building up notes from all of them that he’ll use in trying to help Wilson bounce back.
“I did a lot of research on Russ coming in,” Webb said. “I didn’t want to stop playing for nothing. I wanted to stop playing for the best opportunity and I felt like learning from Coach Payton and helping Russell as much as I could (was that).”
He’s been encouraged so far being around Wilson on a daily basis.
“Every great player learns from their mistakes and the great ones don’t make them again,” Webb said. “They continue to get better. Russell each and every day has approached it like it’s the most important day and it shows. He’s really attacked this offense. It’s a new language for him. He’s had to learn three in three years and that’s not easy, I get that. He’s done an unbelievable job just like the rest of the room.”
Now it’s Webb’s job to help Wilson learn and master the new language and then get back to playing more like the quarterback who averaged 30 touchdown passes a year, 8.2 adjusted yards per completion and 65% completion rate over a decade in Seattle and less like the one that finished with 16, 6.9 and 60.5%, respectively, in his first year in Denver.
“It’s so hard to play quarterback in the national football league in general and for him, he’s been in different offenses and understood how to play the quarterback position,” Wilson said last month. “He’s an incredible teacher, incredible communicator.”
For the coach who is six years younger than his starter, this all feels surprisingly normal.
“It was pretty surreal for it to go that fast, but I’ve been preparing for this for a very long time, so hopefully it’s gone pretty smooth,” Webb said.
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