SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- On the eve of the start of his 11th NFL training camp, San Francisco 49ers left tackle Joe Staley found himself sitting in a familiar seat repeating an even more familiar refrain.
"Everybody comes in at this time of the year and everybody is saying the exact same things Day 1," Staley said. "This is the year that we’re doing it. I’ve said that the last three years being up here with new coaching changes."
Indeed, there's rarely a more opportune time for hope to spring eternal than in the days before the games begin and the pressure mounts. As Staley is quick to point out, the 49ers know that honeymoon period as well as anyone. They're on their fourth head coach in four seasons and have been left espousing the virtues of change before each of the past two.
But after a complete offseason makeover that saw them bring in new head coach Kyle Shanahan and general manager John Lynch, the Niners are making a convincing case that their belief in those changes goes well beyond normal offseason platitudes.
Finally, mercifully, the Niners' 2017 season should and could be all about football without the looming cloud of change hanging over their heads. (That knocking sound you hear is the 49ers pounding furiously on the nearest wood surface.)
"I do feel different about this year," Staley said. "It’s one thing to say it, but I do. I feel confident with the direction the team is going, [where] the franchise is at. I have 100 percent confidence in ownership, the front office getting the right players in this building to go win football games. And then our coaching staff, I’ve been incredibly impressed with how they work, how they speak with us and what they expect from us. It’s been very clear from Day 1 what the mindset should be for every player, and now it’s just up to us to go out there and build on that."
Quite frankly, there hasn't been much for the 49ers to build on in recent seasons. A run of three consecutive NFC Championship Game appearances and a trip to the Super Bowl in 2013 has been buried under the trials and tribulations of the past three seasons. In that stretch, the Niners are 15-33, the fifth-worst winning percentage in the NFL.
Along with those losses has come a large dose of uncertainty about the franchise's leadership. Jim Harbaugh's acrimonious departure followed the aforementioned run of success and a single .500 season. Jim Tomsula lasted for only a season, compiling a 5-11 record before he was fired. Chip Kelly followed and the Niners bottomed out at 2-14, which was finally enough to lead to the dismissal of general manager Trent Baalke as well as Kelly.
On the personnel front, things have been just as fluid. The Niners had a mass exodus in 2015, losing mainstays such as Justin Smith and Patrick Willis to retirement and foundational players such as Frank Gore, Michael Crabtree and Mike Iupati to free agency. Potential cornerstones such as linebacker Chris Borland and tackle Anthony Davis stunned the 49ers by retiring as well, though Davis attempted a brief comeback last offseason. And pass-rusher Aldon Smith's off-field issues ultimately led to his release.
At quarterback, the 49ers haven't exactly been the picture of reliability, either. Colin Kaepernick once looked to be a burgeoning superstar, but Harbaugh's departure and a string of injuries waylaid those possibilities. Blaine Gabbert tried his hand and failed as well, and Kaepernick's protest of racial inequality by kneeling during the national anthem drew even more outside scrutiny.
For all of those reasons and more, when Niners CEO Jed York cleaned house this offseason, he did so in hopes of finding a duo capable of wiping the slate clean and leading the franchise well into the future. Lynch and Shanahan signed six-year contracts, an unprecedented length for first-timers in those jobs.
The Niners' new leadership tandem quickly set about finding players who they believe can establish the culture they want in San Francisco. It hasn't taken Staley long to identify what they want that to be.
"Going into my 11th year, you see a lot of different type of athletes come and go," Staley said. "You see guys that are incredibly, incredibly talented athletically but just don’t have the work ethic to capitalize on all that athleticism. You see the guys that are not talented athletically but have the work ethic to make it. I’d much rather play with the guys that just have the work ethic and are all about football all the time. From my sense, the guys that we brought in, getting to know them this offseason, we brought in a lot of guys where that’s their mentality. They’re 100 percent football and that’s all they really care about. I’m excited about playing football with guys like that."
Regardless of the immediate results on the field, the sense of stability should allow the Niners a chance to focus their efforts 100 percent on getting the franchise moving back in the direction of respectability and allowing Staley the courtesy of talking about something else on reporting day 2018.
"Training camp is always the most exciting time for teams because it’s symbolic of this thing kicking off," Lynch said. "You’ve put so much work into an offseason, now it starts to count. Now it gets real. But I do think there’s an eagerness that we feel, a real positive energy, that Kyle and his staff, I think, have done a tremendous job of building and getting these guys engaged. Challenging them mentally and physically, these guys are excited to play. I think we’ve got a great feel as a team.
"Now things get real, as I said. I think they’re ready for that and I know Kyle and I certainly are."
