Dee Ford’s first season with the 49ers was never quite normal. He experienced issues with knee tendinitis during the preseason, which limited him in practice all year. Then a hamstring issue cropped up toward the end of the season and forced him to miss five games and exit early in a couple others. Ford on Friday during a video conference disclosed to 49ers reporters that two weeks after Super Bowl LIV he had a significant procedure on his knee to clean up some of the issues caused by his tendinitis.
“I had a severe case of tendinitis,” Ford said via ESPN’s Nick Wagoner. “With my position, that’s a blown tire. I feel great right now. I’m able to actually explode off of this knee. Thinking back on it, I can’t believe I played a whole season on it, and we knew at the end of the day what we had to do. It had to be surgical, but I didn’t want to miss the season. We had too much going on. I didn’t want to miss that. It’s in the bag now, though, I’m confident in that.”
Ford wound up having an effective 11 games. He posted 6.5 sacks and gave the 49ers’ pass rush a speed element that made them difficult to stop in passing situations.
A healthy 16 games from Ford could help make up for a lack of productivity that comes with the loss of DeForest Buckner this offseason. In 2018 with the Chiefs, Ford posted 13 sacks and a league-high seven forced fumbles.
His role isn’t likely to expand beyond edge rushing on passing downs since he’s not very effective as a run stopper on the outside. While the knee procedure should put Ford in a better position to succeed in 2020, he was cautious to temper expectations until he can try his knee on the football field.
“As of right now, I’m just getting as healthy as I can,” Ford said via Wagoner. “I know exactly what I felt like last year, [and] doing the things that I’m doing now, it’s like night and day. We’ll just play it by ear once everything gets going. We haven’t really had an offseason, no one has really been in competition, so it’s just really hard to measure where you’re at. So we are going to take it one day at a time and just keep getting this thing as strong as we can possibly get it so we can sack some quarterbacks.”
The 49ers acquired Ford from the Chiefs in a pre-season trade last March that sent a 2020 second-round selection to Kansas City. San Francisco then signed the pass rusher to a five-year, $85 million contract with $45 million guaranteed. He wound up playing just 226 defensive snaps last season.
Ford’s knee surgery should allow him to see more than 226 snaps in 2020. He’ll get there by default if he’s able to play all 16 games, but not needing to limit his use to special situations to maximize the strength in his injured knee should help elevate the 49ers’ pass rush. If Ford is back to his 2018 form, San Francisco won’t miss a beat on defense.
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