Joe Staley has been through it all with the San Francisco 49ers.

He was drafted by the team back in 2007 when the 49ers weren't very good at all. Then from 2011 through 2013, the 49ers experienced a heck of a lot of success, sandwiching a Super Bowl appearance between a couple of NFC Championship Game losses.

But following San Francisco's impressive three-year run, the club fell into a deep hole from 2014 through 2018, missing the playoffs every year and finishing in last place in the NFC West three times.

Now, Staley is back in the Super Bowl, and it's something he wasn't sure was going to happen at any point over the remainder of his career:

“I’d be lying to you if I said, ‘No, I always believed,'” Staley said, according to Nick Wagoner of ESPN.com. “But there were some dark years here in the franchise.”

While he wasn't holding his breath on another trip to the Super Bowl, Staley did say that he had faith in the plan of general manager John Lynch and head coach Kyle Shanahan:

“Everything they’ve been telling me since the day they got here has been true,” said Staley. “Haven’t lied to me or any of the players that have been in here. They’ve had a vision from Day 1.”

The 49ers won 13 games and captured the NFC West division title this season, locking up a first-round bye in the process. San Francisco then defeated the Minnesota Vikings and Green Bay Packers in the playoffs and will take on the Kansas City Chiefs in the Super Bowl on Feb. 2.