From his first day in the Bay Area, 49ers fullback Kyle Juszczyk could see the team's long-term vision.
In the first campaign under coach Kyle Shanahan and general manager John Lynch, Juszczyk was one of 12 free agents the team signed before the 2017 NFL season.
Fast forward six seasons, and Juszczyk is the only player remaining from that inaugural free-agent class.
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Juszczyk spoke to NBC Sports Bay Area's Matt Maiocco on the latest episode of "49ers Talk," where he discussed signing with San Francisco in 2017 and what the first year of the ensuing rebuild felt like after four seasons with the Baltimore Ravens.
"It's funny, it had this like sense of I played my four years in Baltimore, that was like my second go around of college," Juszczyk said. "I did my four years. Now I was going to this new team and again I almost felt like a college freshman and we were rebuilding a program. I took on a responsibility of, 'Alright I want to be part of what makes this something great down the line.' It's funny, as a player I still remember telling my wife that first year I got there and now that I look back, there's no chance we were going to be good, right?
"We were 0-9, but I think I remember saying (before the season) 'I think we're going to be good this year!' As a player, you just always think you're going to be successful. I don't know if everybody thinks that, but that's just always how I felt.
The 49ers began the 2017 season with an 0-9 record and appeared to be in the very beginning stages of what was shaping up to be a long and frustrating rebuild.
San Francisco 49ers
However demoralizing the first half of the season was, Juszczyk and the 49ers' locker room remained positive and embraced the challenge in front of them.
"It's hard to understand that unless you were there. Even when we were 0-9, it wasn't miserable to come to work," Juszczyk added. "You can imagine in a lot of places where you're 0-9, it ain't fun. Not that we were having a ball, because we weren't winning, but we still were looking forward to coming into work and getting to work and getting better. It's hard to describe unless you were there. It was just different from what you would expect from a team that wasn't winning games yet."
In his six-plus seasons, Juszczyk has become a 49ers fan favorite and watched the organization return to dominance as a perennial Super Bowl contender.
It was far from easy, but the years of hard work, patience and trusting the plan is paying off for Juszczyk and the 49ers in the end.