To say Super Bowl 54 was a learning experience for Fred Warner is putting it mildly.

Warner was in the now infamous picture of San Francisco 49ers defenders celebrating in the back of their own endzone following Tarvarius Moore's interception of Patrick Mahomes, the Kansas City Chiefs quarterback's second of the game, that looked to have clinched the Lombardi Trophy for the Niners.

Then everything changed, with the Chiefs scoring 21 points over the course of the final six minutes and 13 seconds to erase a 20-10 deficit and prevail 31-20. Ahead of the rematch in Las Vegas a week from Sunday, the agony of that defeat still informs All-Pro linebacker's approach to every season.

Asked on Thursday what he took from the most painful loss of his career, Warner told a press conference: "You've got to play a full 60 minutes, you know to say, we're up by 10 points late in the game and I'm thinking you know 'hey we're about to win us a Super Bowl' and that thing switched pretty quick and that scarred me for life.

"Now to this day it doesn't matter if it's preseason, regular season, playoff game, I never start getting excited until that clock hits zero, so that's got to be the mindset, playing all the way to the very end because they got a pretty special guy back there throwing the football and we've got to do our best to stuff them."

The 49ers will be trying to stop the same quarterback that broke their hearts and the teams will even be wearing the same uniforms they did back in February 2020, but Warner downplayed the impact of the familiarity from four years ago. 

"I'm sure that's going to get built up all week, the rematch and that sort of thing," said Warner.

"At the end of the day it's two completely different teams because there's a lot of different faces on each side of the ball, we just got to treat this as it is. 

"This is a different offense than what it was back then when we played them. It does have a lot of similar players obviously in crucial positions but we've just got to make sure we prepare the right way and we're ready to go on Sunday."

The 49er defense has received a lot of criticism in recent weeks for its slow starts in the last two playoff games, but Warner will undoubtedly do his utmost to ensure that group is ready to play from the first whistle to the last as he looks to banish the memory of his painful Super Bowl debut with a title he thought was in the bag 53 minutes that first matchup.

49ers’ Nick Bosa expects to be held in Super Bowl rematch with Chiefs

An early tip to the officials.