In front of a national audience on Thanksgiving Day, Rashied Davis found himself lining up in the Detroit Lions secondary, attempting to contain the defending Super Bowl champion Green Bay Packers and the NFL’s most dynamic offensive attack led by the League’s likely Most Valuable Player, Aaron Rodgers.

Upon losing two defensive backs to injury early in the game, Lions Head Coach Jim Schwartz told Davis at halftime to be ready in case someone else went down.

And in the third quarter, someone did.

So Davis, now in his seventh NFL season, stepped in at cornerback. He matched up against the Packers’ Pro Bowl receiver, Greg Jennings, and collected two tackles in relief duty.

Not bad, considering Davis is a wide receiver, not a defensive back.

“I pride myself on being a football player, not just a receiver,” Davis said. “I’ve always been willing to do whatever it takes.”

Whatever it takes.

That pretty much summarizes the journey of the former San Jose SaberCat.

The idea that Rashied Davis would take the field as a defender for the Lions at this point in his career was unlikely. But the fact that Rashied Davis made it onto an NFL field at all is an even more improbable story.

Davis played only one season of organized football in high school – his sophomore year. After a season of little fun sitting on the bench, Davis presumed his playing days were done. But three years later, while studying at West Los Angeles Community College, he decided to try again.

“I wound up being pretty good,” Davis said. “I had some great coaches while I was in junior college that saw something in me. I worked hard and they worked me hard and I got better every year.”

Davis got so good, in fact, that he didn’t come off the field. He starred as a receiver, kick returner and, yes, even a defensive back at WLACC. In 2000, he transferred to San Jose State where he led the Spartans with 40 catches, 785 receiving yards and six touchdowns. The future seemed bright until a coaching change in 2001 turned his career upside down.

“We got new coaches and all of a sudden I wasn’t good enough to play receiver anymore for the new coaching staff,” Davis said.

The new regime elected to move Davis from offense to defense. He went from being the team’s leading receiver his junior season to starting only the final two games of his senior year at defensive back. Though he came away with interceptions in both of those games, his confidence was gone.

“It was a learning year for me,” Davis said. “I just wanted to get onto the field.”

Following the disappointment of his senior year, Davis again assumed that was the end of his football career.

“I was realistic in the fact that I wasn’t going to get a huge shot, if any shot, to play in the NFL,” Davis remembered.

But he still wanted to play and was determined to do whatever it took to continue. So the Tuesday after his last collegiate game, he tried out for the San Jose SaberCats of the Arena Football League. He got a contract offer the same day.

“They signed me to a contract before the NFL draft, so that’s where I went,” Davis said.

While his counterparts were preparing for pro days and combines, Davis would be extending his career by playing Arena ball.

But despite the opportunity to play professionally, Davis would again run into roadblocks.

“I had a huge learning curve,” Davis said. “It’s a different game. You have to learn to catch the ball while running against the wall. You have to create space as opposed to getting your space just from alignment.”

Not only did he initially struggle to adjust to the smaller, quicker Arena game, but a severe ankle sprain early in the 2002 season effectively ended his first year in professional football, an unfortunate setback because Davis and his then-girlfriend, now-wife, Dianna, had bills to pay.

So again, Davis did whatever it took. He worked security. He was a graduate assistant at San Jose State. He coached running backs at West Valley College.

“I worked several jobs,” Davis said. “Most famously, I guess, I worked at Best Buy. I was still working for Best Buy, technically, when I was in training camp with the Bears in 2005.”

But even with Davis working multiple jobs and not making it home till the wee hours of the morning, it was a struggle for the couple to make ends meet.

“I leaned on my wife,” Davis said. “My wife worked several jobs, too. At one point she had three jobs while I was still working on this Arena thing. My wife was the breadwinner. It was just my wife and I trying to rough it out and figure out what we were doing. It was actually her that kept me going. I was thinking about retiring, quitting football and pursuing some other career. She encouraged me to stay and the rest, I guess, is history.”

Davis did whatever it took to find the field in 2003 with the SaberCats. In true “Ironman” form, he caught 16 balls for 175 yards and one receiving score, but also found the end zone twice as a running back and once more as a defender.

Unfortunately, his season was again cut short by a leg injury, this time after just four games.

So he did whatever it took to come back stronger in 2004.

“I learned how to run routes and I learned how to get in and out of my breaks a lot better and quicker,” Davis said of his adjustment to the game. “I learned that I didn’t have to run everything at full speed and I also learned how to catch the ball in traffic because of the wall. I learned how to focus solely on the football and nothing else around me.”

His progress led to an expanded role in 2004. He led the team with 1,785 all-purpose yards en route to an ArenaBowl XVIII championship.

The next year would be even better, as Davis set the SaberCats single-season scoring record with 264 points in 2005. He caught 100 passes for 1,420 yards and 30 touchdowns and was named the team’s MVP and Offensive Player of the Year.

That’s when the NFL took notice.

“Like one of my coaches said, ‘if you have the talent, the NFL will find you,’” Davis said.

The Oakland Raiders and Chicago Bears were both interested in bringing Davis in for a look, but it was the Bears who came up with a contract offer for the 2005 season.

“Ironically, it wasn’t until I stopped looking to make the jump that I actually got the call to play in the NFL,” Davis said. “I always believed in myself and knew I was capable, but it wasn’t until I stopped looking at Arena as a stepping stone that I began to have fun.”

And there it was. After playing only one year of high school ball, learning the game at junior college, riding through the highs and lows of his two-year career at San Jose State, overcoming injuries and learning curves to excel in the AFL and enduring the struggles of both he and his wife having to work multiple jobs to make ends meet – Rashied Davis had made it to the NFL.

Of course, there was a catch. The Bears wanted him to play cornerback.

“I always tell people I played corner long enough to show them I was supposed to play receiver,” Davis joked. “They brought me in as a corner, I believe, because they wanted me to make the team. They had so many guys at the receiver position that they didn’t need any more receivers. It wasn’t that I wasn’t capable of making the team at receiver, but I don’t think I would have had the opportunity. At cornerback, they didn’t bring anybody in.”

Davis made the roster and stuck it out as a corner for the 2005 season. After that, he moved back to receiver and he’s been there ever since – with the exception of last Thursday when the Lions needed his assistance on the other side of the ball. After six seasons in Chicago, Davis signed with Detroit during the 2011 offseason.

“It’s been a roller coaster,” Davis said. “At some points, it was rocky, it was hard. But for me, it’s all been about perseverance and faith. I had a coach, my first year [with the SaberCats] – Terry Malley – and I was having a problem with belief in myself because of my senior year [at San Jose State], and he looked at me and said, ‘Rashied, never let me believe in you more than you believe in yourself.’ Since that point, something clicked in my head and I’ve been able to persevere through everything.”

He certainly has.

Through inexperience, doubt, uncertainty, injuries, and disappointment, Rashied Davis defied the odds and made his dream a reality.

That’s just what you do when you have a dream – whatever it takes.