The San Francisco 49ers are an obsessed team. They are obsessed with getting back onto the football field after February's heartbreaking Super Bowl collapse and focused on returning to and winning the big game.
Head coach Kyle Shanahan used that word — obsessed — on Thursday morning while describing his team's mentality as it prepares for its first practices of training camp. Until this point, it has just been holding walk-throughs, and the players are eager to push forward.
It sounds like September 13 cannot get here soon enough.
Offensive tackle Mike McGlinchey joined KNBR on Thursday and was asked about Shanahan's choice of wording, and if "obsessed" accurately describes the mentality of this football team.
"Yeah, because I cannot think of one that puts more emphasis on it," McGlinchey told Mark Willard. "So yeah, 'obsessed' is the right word. And that's why we were all kind of disappointed that we didn't have an offseason to get going. The last time we all came together and played football was the night of the Super Bowl, and that didn't go very well for us at the end."
During that game, San Francisco led the Kansas City Chiefs by 10 points in the fourth quarter but couldn't hold onto that lead and ended up losing 31-20, falling just short of the franchise's sixth championship.
"To have that taste in your mouth for six straight months without lining up again next to your teammates to be able to get back to where you want to go and where you know you should have been, it becomes that much more of a driving force for us.
"And I think if you could feel the energy, and if people could feel the way that we're working, even in the first two limited weeks here, you'd understand the culture that we have as a team from John (Lynch) and Kyle (Shanahan) down.
"It's not just one guy. It's a fire that's across all 80 or whatever guys that we have here right now, that we're on a mission, and we've got to get back there. There's no other option."
You can listen to the entire conversation with McGlinchey below.