San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Deebo Samuel has opened up on his team’s "heartbreaking" Super Bowl defeat last month.
The 49ers suffered an overtime loss to the Kansas City Chiefs in Las Vegas as their latest quest for a sixth Vince Lombardi trophy came up short. Samuel was on the team that lost Super Bowl LIV in 2020 to the Chiefs when the Niners were again beaten by a late Patrick Mahomes-inspired comeback.
"Two in five years. It's pretty rough," he told the Up & Adams Show on Tuesday. "Being right there, the two that we've been in, just falling short, it's just so heartbreaking. At the end of the day you've got to move on and, you know, it's the next year, and we're just going to continue to do what we set out to do."
This latest post-season defeat comes with the Niners having reached the NFC Championship game four times in the past five years, with two trips to the Super Bowl, but nothing to show for it. And as the dust settles on this latest defeat, Samuel has reflected on this run and what the team needs to do next.
"People just say, 'You know, there's always the next year'," he continued. "But I heard that in 2019 and it took four more years to get where we were at, so it's not as easy as people think to get to the Super Bowl. It takes everything.”
Free agency and the new league year begins next week, with the 49ers in position to retain the majority of their key contributors and Samuel believes the franchise can again pull together to finally get over the hump.
"If you look at it, we still got 90-95% of the guys that are coming back," he continued. "I got all the faith in the world in this team that we have. It's cool and all, four out of five NFC championships, making two Super Bowls, that's all cool, fine and dandy, but it's not cool when you're not the team at the end of the year holding the Lombardi.
"Everybody on this team has one goal, and I hope we set out and we get it done."
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