The 49ers avoided a potential wrench in their Super Bowl plans by paying the University of Miami to update their practice facility according to NFL Media’s Ian Rapoport.
San Francisco, along with the Green Bay Packers, visited the facility prior to the NFC championship game to ensure it was up to standard to host their practices in the lead up to Super Bowl LIV.
Rapoport on Tuesday said the 49ers found an issue with the practice field during their inspection, and required the school to fix it before they’d hold practices there. The university initially refused to make the necessary changes, which forced the 49ers to try and find a new home base for their Super Bowl operations in Florida.
Checking out the site beforehand ensured the 49ers would have time to find a new place to practice in Florida, but that still would’ve been an additional hiccup in an already tumultuous period of time.
Eventually the two sides worked out a deal where Miami would make the changes to their field on the 49ers’ dime.
While that seems like something relatively small, the 49ers have dealt with too many injuries over the last two years to risk practicing on a substandard field. The Cincinnati Bengals did exactly that before the season and lost wide receiver AJ Green to an ankle injury for the year.
Luckily for San Francisco they didn’t have to explore other venues ahead of the NFC championship game, and were able to use the facilities at Coral Gables.
[vertical-gallery id=652195]