Mike Singletary allegedly used 49ers team meeting to rap diss track about Vernon Davis
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It’s maybe the most memorable press conference in San Francisco 49ers history.
“Cannot play with ’em. Cannot win with ’em. Cannot coach with ’em.”
That was the money line from former 49ers head coach Mike Singletary’s first post-game press conference, part of a rant where he publicly called out tight end Vernon Davis after the Niners lost by three touchdowns to Seattle in 2008. Singletary, who took over for the fired Mike Nolan after a 2-5 start in 2008, sent Davis to the locker room during the middle of that game after the Pro Bowler picked up a personal foul for slapping a Seahawks player. Then, he went off on Davis at the podium, saying he’d rather play with 10 players if Davis was the eleventh.
“Can’t do it,” Singletary said. “I want winners.”
Davis has discussed his Singletary feud numerous times since, telling the Boston Globe in 2013 he asked to be traded immediately after the incident.
“I remember the very first time he kicked me off the field. That day, he talked to me briefly,” Davis told the Globe. “Tears were shed. I told him, ‘I want to be traded, Coach. Let me out of here. You’re not using me. I’m not happy.’ He said, ‘OK. I’ll find another team for you.’ That moment, it started to click for me. I said, ‘I have to put my teammates first because if I don’t, I’m going to lose all I have. I have to focus and I have to be different.'”
“Singletary helped me channel my emotions and really find out the best route to go,” he added.
But according to former teammate Delanie Walker, that wasn’t the end of it.
“He never liked Vernon,” Walker recently said on Barstool Sports’ Bussin’ with the Boys podcast. “Singletary made a rap song. He came in, after he kicked Vernon out of the game, went and did the press conference. ‘Can’t play with him, won’t play with him, can’t win with him’ — did all of that — then the next day he came in, he was like, ‘Man, I was sitting at the house and this song came to me and I just had to write it.’ And we were like, ‘What are you talking about?’ ‘Yeah, I made this rap song, it may correlate to some of y’all.’
“And then he was like, ‘Boom boom, all about me. Boom boom, all about me. On Sundays if I don’t get the rock I’m mad.’ Just a whole rap song about Vernon. I’m just sitting there in the seat like, ‘Oh my god, this man just took our whole meeting to do a rap song.’ Yeah, he did the whole rap song for the whole team meeting. Then, we broke up.”
As weird as that is, it’s still probably not the weirdest thing Samurai Mike did during his tenure as the Niners’ skipper — a three-year stint where the Niners went 18-22.
Singletary once dropped his pants during a halftime speech and pointed to his butt to visually illustrate what he thought of his team. He built an actual hill at the 49ers headquarters to build character in 2008 and nicknamed it “Pain.” He made Michael Crabtree cry when he was a rookie.
According to Walker, Davis was not amused by the song at the time.
“I was sitting right next to Vernon. He was just looking bro, just staring at him. I was dying, ‘God damn, Vernon, don’t cry.’ That s—t would make me mad. Not a sad cry, like an angry cry, because he can’t do nothing.”
Davis did go on to have a career-best season the next year, finishing with 78 receptions for 965 yards and 13 touchdowns, tying Antonio Gates for the then-NFL record for a tight end.