The San Francisco 49ers had two weeks to prepare for their first playoff game. When they kick off against the Kansas City Chiefs during Super Bowl LIV on Sunday, they will have had two weeks to prepare for that game, too.
Of course, this week is a little more involved than the week leading to that playoff game against the Minnesota Vikings. The 49ers are staying across the country in a downtown Miami hotel all week. They've had a lot of media obligations this week.
Monday was Super Bowl LIV Opening Night. There were lots of interviews there.
There were interviews on Tuesday morning from the team's hotel. Then, again on Wednesday night.
This isn't a typical week.
Still, aside from all of the distractions, the 49ers are trying to treat these couple of weeks as normally as possible. The team held its regular practice on Wednesday morning. Although, this one was at the University of Miami rather than their facilities in Santa Clara, over 2,500 miles away.
The extra time to game plan has been beneficial, though.
"It's awesome," head coach Kyle Shanahan told reporters on Wednesday. "I wish the players could have two weeks every week to do a game plan. I mean, for them to come out on a Wednesday (practice) today and just be firing on all cylinders, it's not usually like that.
"Usually, we put in a game plan on Wednesday morning, and there's a lot of mistakes and stuff (during) Wednesday walk-through, more in practice, and you've got to kind of catch up as the week goes. Usually, you feel pretty good by Saturday. But when you get a whole week to go through it, you feel a lot better.
"We put in a couple of new things today, took out some stuff we didn't like (from) last week, but I think it takes a little bit of the pressure off the guys because they've had plenty of time to study and do stuff.
"There's a little more things here (at the Super Bowl) that you've got to deal with, so it's nice to have gotten most of that out of the way. Now, they're just doing the little extra details that will make them a little more comfortable on Sunday."
