Super Bowl LIV: 49ers tackle Joe Staley has been around the block

MIAMI — As the years went along and the winning always seemed out of reach, Joe Staley admitted he had doubts about whether he’d ever get back to this point.

“I’d be lying to you if I said, ‘No, I always believed,’  ” said Staley, the longest-tenured player on the 49ers as they prepare to play in Super Bowl LIV on Sunday. “There were some dark years here in the franchise.”

After going to three straight NFC title games from 2011-13, in fact, they hadn’t had a winning season until this year. In the four seasons before this one, they lost at least 10 games in each.

But now Staley gets another crack at a title. He was the starting left tackle eight years ago when the 49ers lost to the Ravens in the Super Bowl, part of a young group that seemed destined for great things for years to come. That did not pan out. Now, at 35, he is the old guy on another young team with a bright future, and he knows his time to win is running out.

“My whole thing has always been going to a Super Bowl and winning a Super Bowl,” Staley said. “I just want to win one so badly. It would be a huge void if it didn’t happen.”

That’s why he fought so hard to return after suffering a broken fibula this season. When he returned, however, he was not at 100% percent strength — back issues developed during his rehab — and he was overwhelmed by Seattle’s Jadeveon Clowney as the 49ers took their first loss of the season.

The backlash from his role in that loss motivated Staley.  “It was pinned on me as being the reason [we lost] because I’m washed up,” he said. “I’m not.”

He hasn’t looked it in the second half of the season, getting stronger and stronger as a key pointman in the 49ers’ rampant running attack. And now he’s one win away from the culmination of his career.

While Staley said he had his doubts he’d ever get here again, he insists that he never had doubts about the people — notably coach Kyle Shanahan and general manager John Lynch — who helped bring the team here.

“Everything they’ve been telling me since the day they got here has been true,” he said. “Haven’t lied to me or any of the players that have been in here. They’ve had a vision from Day One.”

A vision that is on the verge of coming to fruition.

By Tom Rock

tom.rock@newsday.com@TomRock_Newsday

Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.