Don't tell this San Francisco 49ers team that it can't do something. It fought that narrative all last season when so many doubted whether or not it was a legitimate contender. San Francisco responded by winning the NFC West and earning the NFC's best record before embarrassing its first two playoff opponents on the way to Super Bowl LIV.
While that final game didn't end how the 49ers wanted, the team is preparing to fight another narrative in 2020. Can this talented roster overcome the disappointment of losing the Super Bowl the way it did, and fight its way back to the big game?
"It still hurts. We put in a lot of work," Ford told reporters on Friday during a video conference call, "and I feel like, even though narratives don't matter, they matter, honestly, when you think about it. And we fought the narrative (last season) of when we fall off the map, if we were real or not, but we stuck together each week, and we had to battle. We started getting each team's best shot.
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"When you put in that amount of work, of course, it's terrible to come up short, but you've got to have a short memory. Part of being a championship team is having a short memory and moving on."
Unfortunately, Ford has become familiar with disappointing endings. He suffered an earlier heartbreaking defeat at the hands of the New England Patriots during the 2018 season, that time with the Kansas City Chiefs in the AFC Championship Game. Ford used that same short memory to put that loss behind him before being traded the following offseason to the 49ers.
"I said even before I got to San Francisco, I said 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," Ford said. "It's the same thing this year. We can't dwell on the loss. We've got to use that to push forward and be even better — which we are going to be — be even better next year because now we're going to have to face another narrative of just having that hiccup season after the Super Bowl."
Added Ford: "The fight continues, man. The fight continues."