"I think both teams, when we lost the Super Bowl, were pretty young," Gould said. "I think the difference from this team from the last team that I had in Chicago was I think that the guys are understanding of we had the Super Bowl with about six-and-a-half minutes to go, and we didn't play our best football down the stretch.
"I understand that happens, and they (the Chiefs) played great, and they had Pat Mahomes make some clutch plays down the stretch. But I think the guys are hungry. The guys came back in really good shape. They came back understanding the offense and spent a lot of time in the playbooks this offseason.
"A lot of guys here, we talked about going back to the Super Bowl isn't about, hey, you're going to talk about it. It's about doing it every day in practice. It's doing it every day in the locker room, talking to each other, doing it in the weight room, doing it in recovery sessions."
The 49ers suffered some offseason losses, like DeForest Buckner on defense and Emmanuel Sanders on offense. Team decision-makers, however, addressed those losses in the draft with the additions of Javon Kinlaw and Brandon Aiyuk. Will it be enough for San Francisco to reach its goal — hoisting a Lombardi at the end of the season?
"I think if everyone keeps doing what we're doing, and we buy in, I think we have a lot of pieces that we picked up in free agency and the draft," Gould added. "I think it's a great draft class, and I think we have a lot of pieces to be able to put this thing together to make a run at it again this year."
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