The New York Giants made a last-ditch effort to bring back a well-known player to be their quarterback saviour as they watched the injury bug eat away at their position. First, it was Daniel Jones (neck and ACL), and then it was Tyrod Taylor (rib cage).
That face was Davis Webb, the 2022 backup quarterback for the Giants, who retired following that season and signed on to coach quarterback for the Denver Broncos. The Broncos head coach, Sean Payton, made the revelation during an appearance on host Kay Adams’ “Up and Adams Show” on Friday.
Alongside former quarterback Eli Manning and Jones, Payton recapped the Giants’ talk with Webb, telling Jones, “Davis received a call after you got hurt this year asking if you could play again. “Davis, you took this job,” I said. You are a coach.
But it’s unclear if Payton was kidding.
Coaches are not allowed to transition to playing status in order to get around the salary cap, according to league regulations. Webb would have needed to submit a letter of resignation, and the Broncos would have needed to accept it if he had wanted to play again.
Of course, that never materialized, and the Giants ultimately turned to undrafted rookie Tommy DeVito, whose three-game winning streak aroused excitement in many New Yorkers similar to that of NBA point guard Jeremy Lin, whose play for the Knicks ignited the 2011–2012 “Lin-Sanity” era.
The Giants selected Webb in the third round of the 2017 draft, but he was overlooked when head coach Ben McAdoo was dismissed and replaced by Pat Shurmur, who cut Webb the following season.
He left the Jets in 2018 after an unpleasant experience, and it was in Buffalo that he met Brian Daboll, the future head coach of the Giants, who was then the offensive coordinator for the Bills. Webb signed a free agent contract with the Giants in 2022 after Daboll was appointed head coach. His familiarity with Daboll’s offensive style made him a useful resource for Jones during his system-learning process.
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