Fred Warner understands how challenging it is to reach the Super Bowl. The San Francisco 49ers linebacker reached the big game in his second NFL season. After the heartbreaking defeat, the young player believed the next opportunity would quickly present itself.
"When you're young and naive, you think when you go so early in your career, it's like, 'Man, this is just what it's like. You go to the Super Bowl every year, you have a chance to compete,' and that's not what the case is," Warner told reporters on Thursday.
It took four years for Warner and the 49ers to return to the Super Bowl. The team fell just short in each of the past two seasons but finally has an opportunity to make amends for the mistakes made during that previous matchup.
Perhaps fittingly, their opponent in Super Bowl 58 is the same one they faced in Super Bowl 54—the Kansas City Chiefs.
"I'm sure that's going to get built up all week, the rematch and that sort of thing," Warner said. "I think, at the end of the day, it's two completely different teams because there's a lot of different faces on each side of the ball. I think we just got to treat this as it is. This is a different offense than what it was back then when we played them. It does have a lot of similar players there, obviously, in crucial positions, but we just got to make sure we prepare the right way and we're ready to go on Sunday."
The 49ers faced adversity getting to this point. The team played two gritty playoff games on the road to Super Bowl 58. San Francisco had to rely on quarterback Brock Purdy to orchestrate a game-winning touchdown drive in the closing minutes against the Green Bay Packers in the Divisional Round. Then, in the NFC Championship Game, it took erasing a 17-point halftime deficit to get past the Detroit Lions.
When asked to assess the 49ers' performances in those two playoff games, Warner stated, "Not good enough at all. ... The standard has been what it has been for as long as I've been here. And we've relied heavily on winning games on defense, holding teams to minimal points, suffocating teams, dictating how the game is going to go based off of how we go."
Warner acknowledges that has yet to happen in the playoffs. While there are several reasons behind that, the linebacker knows they have an opportunity to dictate how the final chapter of this season's storyline is written.
"They're probably looking at the tape, and they're thinking they have a great opportunity ahead, as they should," Warner said. "They should look at that tape, and they should think that. But to say that we have a great opportunity to correct that and make sure that we give our best performance in the Super Bowl, I think that's exactly where our mindset is at."
The good news is that the 49ers are battle-tested heading into the Super Bowl. They won't assume the game is over until the clock hits zero, especially against a quarterback like Patrick Mahomes.
"On defense, I think this is an opportunity, in my eyes, to correct the wrongs that we've had," Warner shared. "... Even though we played the way we did and still found a way to win, with the offense that we got right now, says everything about our team and about our chances of winning this game that's coming up. Because if we do sure up the things that we need to do, if we do come out and play the defense that I know that we're capable of doing, I know we have a great chance of winning the game."