49ers’ 35-year old left tackle pondered retirement and now he will be in Super Bowl
Joe Staley has been in the middle of all of it: the 2012 Super Bowl season amid turmoil, the misery that followed, the reboot and rebuild.
And now the jubilation.
That broken leg? The busted finger? The sore back? All those aches and ailments that made this, the left tackle’s 13th season with the 49ers, his most trying campaign? All good, thanks. Amazing what victory can do to a man’s body and soul.
On Sunday evening on the Levi’s Stadium turf, there was the familiar bulk of a 6-foot-5, 300-pound man poured into jersey No. 74 doing an unfamiliar thing. Some sort of a dance move with an NFC Championship hat in hand. Nice footwork, big man!
Not too long after drive-blocking the Green Bay Packers back toward the team buses, Staley was whisking away gold and red confetti as he held up the George Halas Trophy. He waved to family and friends in the seats, none more cherished than young daughters Audrey and Grace, and his wife Carrie
It was his moment. Staley could not fathom the 49ers would be on their way to Miami for the Super Bowl during the unraveling of the Jim Harbaugh bluster years, or the lost 2-14 season of 2016 under Chip Kelly, or during the 0-9 start to the 2017 campaign. Staley called some of those periods, “dark years” for the franchise.
Nor could Staley see this Super Bowl dance coming, at least personally, earlier this season when he was on the outside peeking in. He labored through injuries that reduced him to a career-low seven regular-season games. First, it was a broken fibula in Week 2 at Cincinnati. He returned eight weeks later only to break his finger, requiring surgery. He missed three more games.
Then Staley had to round his 35-year old body back into form against defenders eager to ruin his day.
Staley wept proudly after the 49ers beat Seattle on Dec. 29 to cap a 13-3 regular season and home-field advantage, the game that set this all in motion. 49ers right guard Mike Person said then that Staley “was on cloud nine the entire flight home” from the Pacific Northwest.
He’s still somewhere in the midst of cloud nine, a man in his element. He’s also still right at home in the trenches. Staley has been a terror, a man reborn, on trap plays in two playoff routes to set a bruising tone.
San Francisco ran it 47 times against Minnesota in an NFC Divisional playoff win and the 49ers went to the ground 42 more times to demoralize the Packers. Staley said on the eve of the playoffs that the 49er “don’t have to reinvent the wheel” to maintain the momentum. He was right. But the 49ers are riding a reliable theme of a relentless rushing attack to Miami, a caravan steered by Staley.
Staley performed a touchdown dance during the 37-20 effort over Green Bay, much to the delight of fans and teammates. Was that really Big Joe moving and shaking? Even he isn’t sure. It’s been that sort of joy ride for a man who once thought his career was headed straight to the ditch, without seatbelts.
Staley has that his 49ers experience has been something of a journey, saying he loves roller-coasters because they build “character.”
That touchdown dance, big sir?
“I don’t know what that was,” Staley said Sunday night with a laugh. “I saw that on the screen afterwards. I don’t even remember doing that. I was just pumped.”
Staley is the elder statesman of the club, the lone holdover from the 2012 San Francisco Super Bowl team that lost a heartbreaker to Baltimore in the SuperDome. His teammates are rooting for him. So are former ones. One-time 49ers running back Frank Gore tweeted, “Could not be happier for my guy @jstaley74 and @49ers Back to the Super Bowl!”
San Francisco receiver Emmanuel Sanders said “we’re all so happy for Joe. He’s been through it all here.”
Staley was drafted by coach Mike Nolan in the first round of the 2007 draft out of Central Michigan. He played for Mike Singletary, Harbaugh, Jim Tomsula, Chip Kelly and now Kyle Shanahan. He has provided blind-side protection for an army of quarterbacks at Candlestick Park and at Levi’s Stadium: Alex Smith, Trent Dilfer, Shuan Hill, J.T. O’Sullian, Troy Smith, Colin Kaepernck, Blaine Gabbart, Brian Hoyer, C.J. Beathard, Nick Mullens and, finally, Jimmy Garoppolo
Staley enjoyed just three winning seasons in his first 12 NFL seasons. He landed on five Pro Bowl rosters and played in 124 of 128 games before injuries hammered him this season. It was during the 2017 season, the nine-game skid, that Staley wondered if he might be better off retiring. He was emotionally spent. But he was sold on the message of hope by Shanahan and general manager John Lynch. He is signed through the 2021 season.
Why did he stick around? Football is hard to leave. Teammates become brothers. The sport also pays exceptionally well to knock people up and down the field. But there had to be a deeper reason.
“They had a vision,” Staley said of Shanahan and Lynch. “It’s been exciting to see them build this place.”
Staley said earlier in the playoffs, “I was at a crossroads in my career. I don’t want to go through another rebuild kind of thing. And listening to (Shanahan and Lynch) talk about what they believe and the kind of players they were going to bring in here. They wanted to really, really put an emphasis on guys who were going to really love football. High-character, quality guys who were also just bad-asses on the football field.”
In other words, a lot of Staley sorts.
This story was originally published January 22, 2020 at 4:00 AM.