49ers
TRENDING: 49ers’ Charvarius Ward is itching for a Chiefs retaliation measure.
For Charvarius Ward, a 49ers-Chiefs Super Bowl showdown is nothing new.
But it’s not like he’s suddenly on the 49ers’ side for Super Bowl 2024 instead of the Chiefs’ side, as he was four years prior in Super Bowl 2020.
“It’s better over here,” Ward said. “In every way possible.”
The cornerback for the Second Team All-Pro could not provide any additional details, but he maintained that he had no ill will toward the Chiefs or head coach Andy Reid, who had allowed him to sign a three-year, $40.5 million contract in March 2022.
He earned $5.5 million over four years with the Chiefs, according to spotrac.com.
“I just feel like they didn’t have enough money to compensate me,” Ward said. “I did want to stay. They wanted me to stay. Coach Reid made it pretty clear. But I had to get my bag.
“I just feel like they didn’t have enough money to compensate me,” Ward said. “I did want to stay. They wanted me to stay. Coach Reid made it pretty clear. But I had to get my bag.
“I was young. I was in the league, but I wasn’t rich yet. I needed my money. The 49ers were a great team as well — a Super Bowl contender — and they gave me the bag, so I’m thankful.”
After going undrafted in 2018 and being traded by his original team, the Cowboys, for a backup offensive lineman, Ward became a starter in his second season under Steve Spagnuolo, the defensive coordinator for the Chiefs.
When the Chiefs came back to win their first Super Bowl in fifty years, he played 98 percent of the defensive snaps and finished with four tackles.
“[The 49ers] thought they were going to beat us,” Ward said, slipping back into a Chiefs’ “us and we” mindset for a minute. “They thought they let the game slip, but I thought we had the better team back then. And I feel like we have a better team overall with the 49ers now. I really mean that.”
Nevertheless, it’s unlikely that he would feel that he was on the worse team now if his team swap had happened in reverse order.
The 49ers’ 10-point lead in the fourth quarter was gone, and most of them still have unanswered questions.
Although Ward doesn’t, he has personal reasons to go against the wishes of many of his former teammates and friends.
“He’s been an incredible player for us,” defensive end Nick Bosa said. “And I think he wants some payback, so we’re going to have to try to help him get it.”
It’s a rare thing that a team loses a player of the 27-year-old Ward’s ascending ability and comes out just as good at the position on the other side.
But the Chiefs had L’Jarius Sneed — who started 15 games across from Ward in 2021 — waiting in the wings to ascend to one of the NFL’s most physical, shutdown cornerbacks, and they drafted First-Team All-Pro Trent McDuffie to play in the slot just a month after Ward’s departure.
“I wouldn’t say they made a mistake, because they won the Super Bowl the year that I left them,” Ward said. “They are doing something right over there. It was a great addition for the 49ers to bring me on, though.”
The irony is that Sneed is thought to have been the NFL’s biggest All-Pro snub, a belief that Chiefs teammates have highlighted.
Given that the NFL’s top-ranked cornerback, Jaylon Johnson of the Bears, was a Second-Team member, and that the Jets’ Sauce Gardner and the Cowboys’ DaRon Bland were the First-Team outside cornerbacks, Ward most likely received the place instead.
“I think Sneed is one of the best corners in the game,” Ward said. “He will hit you like a linebacker and cover like a corner. He’s going to get his recognition sooner rather than later. I don’t know if I mentored him, but I’m pretty sure he took little tips from my game, and I took some tips from his game.”
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