In described embodiments, a transceiver includes an eye monitor, clock and data recovery, and adaptation modules. Data sampling clock phase and error clock phase determined from a data eye are decoupled in the transceiver during a sampling phase correction process. Decoupling these clock phases during the sampling phase correction process allows relative optimization of system equalization parameters without degradation of various adaptation algorithms. Such adaptation algorithms might be employed for received signal gain and equalization such as, for example, Decision Feedback Equalizer (DFE) adaptation. Deriving the data sampling clock and error clock phases from the same clock generation source and with independent clock control enables an iterative sampling phase correction process that allows for accelerated clock and data recovery (CDR) without disturbing the data eye shape.