Jimmie Ward

The 2020 offseason will be one that quickly reveals how much the 49ers value keeping their Super Bowl group together, and how they want to approach the re-tooling of that mostly young roster over the course of the next few seasons.

Having made it to the Super Bowl and lost, the 49ers’ task is keeping their group together and running it back.

The 49ers have a heavy challenge facing them this offseason. With limited cap space, San Francisco will be tasked with trying to retain and extend a few key players.

Super Bowl week is heavy on the frills and light on normalcy.

The 49ers are “fully” healthy. In a legacy-shaping game that should send the 49ers to the Super Bowl, they will have every asset available outside of their injured reserve.

Part of the 49ers’ weekly preparation involves the scout team quarterback imitating, to the best of their ability, the upcoming opposing quarterback.

There is oh, so much talk about the 49ers’ defensive line, and rightfully so. But it’s the addition (by lack of subtraction) of Jaquiski Tartt and Jimmie Ward which has fundamentally changed the makeup of the 49ers defense.

Perfection does not exist in the National Football League—the sport is far too complex, and the world-class athletes playing it are doing so with a level of speed and dynamism which creates unpredictability on every snap.

Since the start of the 49ers’ season, it’s been all Tarvarius Moore and none of Jimmie Ward at free safety. Ward has yet to be active for any of the first three weeks, while Moore is effectively a rookie.

If the San Francisco 49ers win on Sunday, they’ll be 3-0 for the first time since 1998 and a guaranteed 3-1 for the first time since 2012.