Lowell Cohn: Will 49ers' Anthony Davis be as tough on the field as he is on Twitter?

Anthony Davis is the toughest player on Twitter in the history of the NFL. No one writes a tougher game. No one comes close.

Davis has blocked me on Twitter. That’s quite an honor, except I don’t get the benefit of reading his prose, which rivals Faulkner and Fitzgerald for pure lyrical beauty. No problem. Some of his tweets are so notorious I have read them on other venues in spite of being banished by him.

Why am I writing about the prose master of the NFL?

Davis, a very good right tackle when he used to play right tackle, just got reinstated by the NFL after sitting out last season because he lost interest in the game, or something like that. In NFL terms, he successfully filed for reinstatement, having conveniently missed minicamp and OTAs. He will courageously participate in training camp. Davis expects to be everything he was before. Expects to start. Thinks he still has it.

Really?

Some earnest players miss an entire season rehabbing from serious injuries. Like NaVorro Bowman, who missed 2014 and came back last season and played well. Earnest football player. Serious football player. Team player.

Davis does not fall into the Bowman category. Davis was not rehabbing last season. He was quitting. He quit on the 49ers in June 2015. He quit extremely late as quitting goes, a blow to the team. The 49ers had depended on him and never found a satisfactory replacement on short notice.

Players who rehab, as opposed to players who quit, can miss a season and come back in great shape. They spend the off year working with team trainers. You see them in the weight room.

Not Davis. So we ask this. What was he doing in his sabbatical year? Maybe he traveled. Or sat on the couch. Or kept a diary of his most profound thoughts, one of those little books with a lock.

What exactly is Davis’ body like? Is it a football body? Has he gained weight? More to the point, has he lost weight?

Stay tuned.

And there’s this. When the training-camp training gets grueling and he finally realizes how much shape he’s not in, how much work he must do, will this quitter quit again? He’s dreaming if he thinks he automatically can be who he was. At a certain point, he’ll understand the extreme effort required. Understand he must earn his spot. Actually compete. He has a history of quitting.

And there’s the Chip Kelly offense - the Chip Kelly no-huddle offense. The play ends. No time for a blow. The offense rushes to the line of scrimmage. Runs the next play. Fast. Will Davis have the endurance for the Chip Kelly offense? You got me.

OK, that’s the football stuff. That’s not the half of it. With Davis there’s lots more than the football stuff. And it involves his extraordinary writing talent and his tweets.

During the year he quit on the team, Davis took to Twitter to criticize the Niners. This is called burning your bridges. Blowing them up with dynamite.

Eyeball these whopper Davis tweets:

He wrote: “I do not want to work with a front office or anyone else who seemingly doesn’t want to win as bad as I do.”

This from the quitter. Where was his desire to win bad last season?

In a memorable tweet, he said Trent Baalke spoke to him “in code.” A coded tweet if there ever was one. Davis also wrote, “dealing with Trent is giving me a headache.”

He wrote: “Would you happily rent your body out to people that (expletive for lie to you) and constantly try to manipulate you? I hope you’d stand up for yourself.”

In yet another classic of the Twitter genre, he accused Joe Staley - great player, great guy - of being “soft.”

Look in the mirror, dude.

So, Davis has - what shall we say? - social issues to confront with his old team. Like can the Niners stand his presence? Staley has said he welcomes back Davis. Staley the consummate gentleman. You wonder if Baalke feels the same. Or Jed York. In observing Davis, I noticed he was a loner in the locker room. Didn’t seem to have many friends. His friends were Mike Iupati and Mike Solari, both gone. He tended toward the antisocial. My interpretation.

One more thing. Defining moment for Davis - and me. One of my favorite Davis memories. A few years ago in Seattle. Davis was annoyed by Seahawks cornerback Jeremy Lane about something. Who knows what? Near the end of the game and after the whistle had blown on the play, Davis ran far down the field and knocked down Lane from behind. Took him out.

Lane weighs 190 pounds. That’s 130 pounds lighter than Davis. In addition to being brave on Twitter, Davis is brave when your back is turned. The officials called a penalty on him and the league fined him for the dirty play.

After the game, I sought out Davis in the locker room and asked why he did that to Lane.

“I was doing my (expletive) job,” he explained.

I was about to ask how cheap-shotting Lane was doing his job, but Baalke, who was standing near us, dismissed Davis with a flick of his right hand. Davis vanished.

I turned to Baalke. “Is he representing your organization well right now?” I asked.

Baalke stared straight ahead. Baalke never answered.

A certain coolness entered our relationship after that.

For more on the world of sports in general and the Bay Area in particular, go to the Cohn Zohn at cohn.blogs.pressdemocrat.com. You can reach Staff Columnist Lowell Cohn at lowell.cohn@pressdemocrat.com.