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SANTA CLARA — Nick Bosa sat in a suite last Super Bowl, a guest of the doctor who repaired his left knee in 2020. Bosa enjoyed the company, but not the view of the 49ers’ rival, the Los Angeles Rams, winning Super Bowl LVI on their home field.
“I didn’t like it at all,” Bosa recalled in August at training camp. “If I did it all over again, I would have stayed at home or gone somewhere else to watch it.”
Bosa did his part to put the 49ers in Super Bowl contention this season. He led the NFL in sacks with a career-high 18 1/2 for the NFC West champions, who host the Seattle Seahawks in Saturday’s wild-card round to open the playoffs.
Has Bosa visualized attending a second straight Super Bowl and hoisting the Lombardi Trophy on Feb. 12 at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Ariz?
“Not yet. No. Not yet,” Bosa said Tuesday at his locker, before getting practice off to rest for his third playoff trip in four seasons.
Bosa is not looking to make this a one-man show. As a team captain, he wants to make sure younger players are ready for this “new energy” that awaits in the playoffs.
“I’ve learned a ton, just the four years being in this league and the intensity you have to bring,” Bosa said. “Whenever you have good leaders, they bring you along. I had that in ’19, so I’m hoping to do that for some guys this year.”
Playing at home will help. The 49ers played just two playoff games in Levi’s Stadium’s previous eight seasons: their 2019 team’s routs over the Minnesota Vikings and the Green Bay Packers, en route to a Super Bowl loss to the Kansas City Chiefs.
“When you get out on that field and Levi’s is packed, there’s a different feel to playoff football, and it brings it out of you,” added Bosa, who won NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year honors in 2019 and is the favorite to win NFL Defensive Player of the Year award when it’s announced three nights before the Super Bowl.
Coach Kyle Shanahan tasked Bosa to address the team before every game dating back to last season, and that blend of dry wit with simplistic orders is a hit. Before the 49ers closed their regular season Sunday with a 38-13 rout of the Arizona Cardinals, Bosa reminded teammates not to take the short-handed Cardinals lightly, “to stay locked in and put them to rest,” defensive tackle Arik Armstead said.
“He’s very business like in everything he does,” Shanahan said of Bosa. “He thinks about whether he wants to go out to dinner and how much inflammation that will cause and how that will affect his explosion on clip No. 62.
“That guy obsesses over every little detail and that’s why he’s as prepared as anyone I’ve been around. And, as I’ve said, he’s been preparing for what his job in life is to do since he was 3 years old.”
Back in training camp, Bosa correctly forecast that this season’s biggest uncertainty revolved around their “new” quarterback, that being Trey Lance, who would suffer a fractured ankle in the Sept. 18, home-opening win over the Seahawks. That vaulted Jimmy Garoppolo back into his old job, until a fractured foot Dec. 4 against Miami brought forth another new quarterback, Brock Purdy, who’s won his five starts to push their win streak to 10.
One caveat Bosa said mention in that training-camp interview was, regardless of the quarterback play, “I know that our team is good enough to win the Super Bowl.”
The first step in these playoffs is Saturday against a familiar foe who Bosa anticipates will bring a heavy dose of Kenneth Walker III, a rookie rusher with 1,050 yards and nine touchdowns. Of Bosa’s 18 1/2 sacks this season, three came against Geno Smith, who set a Seahawks record with 4,282 yards in the regular season.
“Obviously he’s the top of the top professionals. He’s had a great year,” said Jordan Willis, a fellow defensive end and Bosa’s locker-mate. “Just like him, everybody else, we want to finish it off this year.”
PURDY’S PLAYOFF MENTALITY
Shanahan wants Purdy to take this week in stride and keep the same routine, which, after all, has seen him deliver six wins since replacing Garoppolo after one series of the Dec. 4 win against Miami.
“I know if we lose, our season’s over. That’s the only difference, but you feel like that almost every week in an NFL game,” Shanahan said. “… Our mentality is we’ve been playing playoff games for a long time and the pressure’s always on. I think Brock takes that into every game.
This game, if you want to sit and think about all the outside stuff, I’m sure you could psyche yourself out,” Shanahan added. “The only thing I would say through experience of it is: once you get on the field, there’s absolutely nothing different. Whether it’s a playoff game, whether it’s the Super Bowl, all you can do is control the athletic sporting event that you’re involved in. Don’t make it more than that.”
PRACTICE MATTERS
Aside from Bosa and left tackle Trent Williams getting to rest during Tuesday’s light practice, the only injured players kept out were quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo (foot) and cornerback Ambry Thomas, who aggravated an ankle injury last week and didn’t play Sunday.
Limited in practice: guard Aaron Banks (knee, ankle), linebacker Dre Greenlaw (knee), running back Christian McCaffrey (knee), linebacker Demetrius Flannigan-Fowles (neck) and defensive tackles Arik Armstead (ankle, foot) and Javon Kinlaw (knee). Defensive tackle Kevin Givens is fully cleared after his Dec. 4 knee sprain.
Rookie defensive tackle Kalia Davis won’t be making is NFL debut in the playoffs. The 49ers are closing his window to come off the non-football-injury list despite encouraging work in recent practices.
RAY-RAY’S IMPACT
Shanahan was cooing about this season’s free agency arrival of return specialist Ray-Ray McCloud, who speaks softly but carries impressive averages (10.8 yards per punt return, 23 yards per kick return).
“Ray-Ray leads the league in mumbles. Sometimes you have to get him to not mumble,” Shanahan quipped. “He’s been great. He’s been awesome for our team. The way he plays so fearlessly and has fun out there, that’s what you’re going to get in him as a person. … Come game time, he’s a dude you can count on.”
Shanahan noted that McCloud carries with him his own customized, heavier football and warms up at practice with resistant bands on his knees. “He’s got his own little routine that he does,” Shanahan said.
McCAFFREY MEMORY
Brandon Aiyuk was at home playing the “Madden” video game when his phone repeatedly buzzed with the news that would change the 49ers’ season: Christian McCaffrey was coming via a trade from the Carolina Panthers. What message did that move send to the NFL? “That we weren’t playing around this season. If not now, when?”
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