Edge rusher Dee Ford has experienced disappointment two seasons in a row after getting so close to Super Bowl titles.
His offside penalty while with the Kansas City Chiefs nullified a game-clinching interception in the final minute of the AFC Championship Game against the eventual Super Bowl-champion New England Patriots.
And in February, Ford was on the losing end to his former team in Super Bowl LIV after the 49ers blew a 10-point lead in the fourth quarter.
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“You have to have a short memory,” Ford said recently on a video call with Bay Area reporters. “Part of being a championship team is having a short memory and moving on.”
A big part of moving on past the pain for Ford is, well, moving on past the pain.
Ford underwent surgery two weeks after the season to address a lingering issue with tendinitis in his left knee, which he compared to playing on a “blown tire.” In 11 games during the regular season, Ford registered 6.5 sacks and never felt right physically.
A healthy Ford is a big key for the 49ers rebounding to put themselves in position to again compete for a Super Bowl.
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Ford said the 49ers heard the constant chatter last season when their legitimacy was regularly questioned on national talk shows. The 49ers won their first eight games of the season and went on to post a 13-3 record, an NFC West title and home-field advantage in the NFC playoffs.
“We fought the narrative of, ‘Were we going to fall off the map?’ ‘Were we real or not?’ We stuck together each week and we had to battle,” Ford said. “We started getting each team’s best shot. When you put in that amount of work, of course, it’s terrible to come up short.”
The individual players are scattered across the country during the 49ers’ virtual offseason, a result of NFL teams being prohibited from gathering for team-organized workouts due to COVID-19. Some of the 49ers' offensive skill players, including quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo, are meeting regularly in the Bay Area.
[RELATED: 49ers' Kyle Shanahan believes Jimmy Garoppolo can be all-time great QB]
Ford, who went through this same feeling a year ago, is speaking from experience when he talks about using the hurt from how one season ended to fuel him for the next season.
“If I was to dwell on things that happened in the past, I wouldn’t be any good in the future and helping my team get back,” he said. “So it’s the same thing this year. We can’t dwell on the loss. You got to use that to push forward and be even better -- which we are going to be -- (this) year. Because now we’re going to have to face another narrative of having that hiccup season after the Super Bowl.
“The fight continues, man. The fight continues.”