Last time San Francisco 49ers appeared in the Super Bowl, it was 3 February 2013.
Baltimore Ravens stood between them and the Vince Lombardi Trophy in a showpiece played out to a global audience of billions and on the turf of a New Orleans Superdome that had offered a place of shelter for those unable to evacuate during Hurricane Katrina eight and a half years earlier.
Quarter-back that night at Super Bowl XLVII for the 49ers was a certain Colin Kaepernick.
At the time, he was in the early embers of his career that would be later cut short following his prominent role in taking a knee during the US national anthem before games as a protest against issues of racial inequality.
Kaepernick has not been recruited by an NFL team since.
The whole episode did highlight the awkward interconnection within American football when social issues and sport collide or intermingle.
Then, 372 days after Super Bowl XLVIII, a potential watershed moment occurred, one that would have ramifications outside the confines of that sport.
University of Missouri college football player Michael Sam publicly came out.
The significance of that announcement came in the fact that he was about to enter the Draft in May 2014, which would make him the first openly LGBT player drafted in the NFL.
Eventually drafted by the St Louis Rams, the now 30-year-old Texan featured in pre-season games but was waived before the 2014 season, subsequently enduring the same fate during a brief stint at the Dallas Cowboys before retiring altogether in 2015.
It hasn't quite ended up being a bonafide watershed moment with few players coming out in the sport since and no active players in the NFL. It also has parallels to the situation in soccer and other team sports globally.
But there is little doubt that there are American football players out there who are LGBT.
One such example was former New England Patriots and Kansas City Chiefs offensive linesman Ryan O'Callaghan.
For the California native, football offered a convenient shield as he tried to mask that part of his identity from everyone around him, including during a NFL pro career that ran from 2006 to 2011.
"I used that to my advantage. It was a big part of me using football as a cover, was people assumed that's what a football player was - being macho and physical," tells RTÉ Sport.
"Even today, a lot of people think a gay guy can't play football because they don't know.
Ryan O'Callaghan during his pro career with the Patriots
"But in high school when I was younger, you heard bigoted comments in the locker room and people calling things 'gay' or using slurs.
"But as the years went on and I moved up through football, from the college to the pros, I heard less and less of that.
"And in the NFL, I don't recall hearing a team-mate say 'f**' or anything like that in the locker room.
"But that also has to do with people getting older and realising what's right and wrong and also the NFL, it's work you know. In your office, you can't go around saying 'f**.'"
In a US presidential election year, the concept of blue and red states will be mentioned often in analysis.
But it masks the internal dynamics within states. California for example is solidly blue when it comes to national elections.
But within the state there are bastions of red and O'Callaghan was born and raised in one - Shasta County - just like FIFA Women's World Cup winner Megan Rapinoe, who also hails from Redding.
"It is extremely conservative up here," he says.
"I was born in '83 and grew up late '80s, '90s. It was much the same. Back then, it was lumber industry mainly and today there are still mills around here, but there's not a lot of higher education around and it's somewhat isolated from a big city.
"It's extremely conservative and you can look at the voting from 2016 and see that pretty clearly."
He would use football as a shield but as soon as his career ended, his plan was to kill himself
He would use football as a shield but as soon as his career ended, his plan was to kill himself
Of the general ignorance that can still prevail, he adds that "one of the first [message boards] comments I read was 'keep that f** out of schools' after giving a speech at a nearby college.
Growing up in that environment, O'Callaghan decided to keep the fact that he was gay secret and plotted a drastic life map as it became clear that he was a gifted football player; he would use football as a shield but as soon as his career ended, he would kill himself.
"I was absolutely convinced that family and friends would never love me if they knew I was gay and I didn't really look back and reconsider that maybe they would accept me or love me for who I am," he explains.
"Football was a great cover for my sexuality and protected me.
"When I was closeted, it was consuming and exhausting trying to stay in. I always thought that someone was onto me and about to figure out that I was gay, even though not at one time did I try to act on any of my desires."
It got to a point where he would find "reasons not to be in the locker room" with team-mates during instances like showering after training or games. In those moments, he could often be found well away from the cohort of players, drinking coffee for as long as he could.
"It wasn't because I didn't want anyone to see me or that I couldn't control myself, but just because I felt guilty and I thought they probably wouldn't want me in here," he explains.
"Now, afterwards I found out that wasn't the case. Most people don't care."
However, mounting injuries in his final months at the Chiefs meant the shade that football provided began to crumble, leaving him closer to the preordained fate that he had set for himself.
"I suffered from depression and the worst thing for a depressed mind is [spare time]," he says, adding that "it made things worse" for him.
As the physical and emotional toll grew, O'Callaghan began to abuse painkillers.
"Our trainer for the Chiefs noticed I was acting different but he didn't know I was a junkie and an addict and abusing it," he says.
"He discretely pulled me aside and recommended that I speak to someone and that was Dr Wilson."
Dr Susan Wilson was a Kansas city psychologist and she had an inkling that his issues went deeper than just physical pain and the consequent painkiller abuse.
"I thought I'd be able to go there and manipulate her like I had everyone else in my life up to that point," he says.
Instead, feeling comfortable in her presence, Dr Wilson was the first person he came out to.
"Talking to her, I told her my plan [to kill myself] and she helped me come up with a new plan and that involved telling family and then people close to me."
One of those close contact was Scott Pioli who had held executive roles at both the Patriots and the Chiefs when O'Callaghan was at both franchises.
Pioli's warm and compassionate reaction to his pronouncement gave him the courage to tell his family, who in contrast to his fear from years previously, accepted him for who he was.
O'Callaghan's own public announcement would come years after retirement. But what did he make of Sam's announcement?
"I knew the media would make a big deal out of it because he could've been the first guy to play in the NFL as an openly gay man," he says.
"I was hopeful and optimistic."
The media reaction was something Sam's then-agents Cameron Weiss and Joe Barkett of Empire Athletes would have to take into account as they decided how to craft an announcement.
Sam had already come out to his University of Missouri team-mates but his sexual orientation wasn't public knowledge, although it seemed some in the media and scouting circles were aware.
"We were approached by quite a few people just to open lines of communication with him," Weiss, now President of his Dynamic Sports Group, tells RTÉ Sport of that pre-announcement period.
"But it was pretty apparent from our perspective what that was regarding. He had already come out to his team-mates, so it wasn't as if this was necessarily a secret. It just wasn't out in the open to the entire world."
The decision was made to put it all out in the open in February 2014.
"Michael really wanted to control his own narrative to be able to tell his truth the way he wanted to tell it," Weiss explains.
"The impetus for all of this was just solely about this being someone who wanted to be able to tell their story the way they wanted to.
Cameron Weiss
"So myself and Joe went about looking for a publicist who is experienced specifically within the LGBT community and Howard Bragman came highly recommended based on previous work he had done and obviously I think he did a great job with how he set the stage for Michael to be able to speak his truth."
Weiss added that there was "uncertainty" in terms of how they expected the announcement to be received by the general public and within football circles.
"Anytime you enter a situation that's de novo, there's just that element of kind of like 'what are the different outcomes that could potentially come to fruition'."
The announcement naturally made headlines all across the United States and far beyond with sudden interest in Sam and his story, with the Oprah Winfrey Network even planning a later-to-be-postponed documentary series.
"I don't think anybody anticipated how big it would be," says Weiss.
"We knew that nationally it would be big news because he was SEC Defensive Player of the Year.
"I think beyond that we were I wouldn't say surprised, but the reach and the impact was larger than anticipated."
Sam was eventually drafted in the seventh round which was lower than the expectations months previously.
"There was a lot that played out through the pre-Draft process that affected his draft stock - not just the publicity and high profile nature of who he became in those months," says Weiss.
"He went to the Combine and I think he'll be the first to admit that it wasn't his best performance.
"So that definitely affected it a little bit and I think there were questions just on the nature of his position.
"Was he going to be a down defensive linesman or was he going to be an outside line-backer?
"We weren't surprised that his draft stock fell a little bit. I just didn't think that it would go all the way to the seventh round."
He adds that "there were a lot of football reasons as to why he slid".
Ryan O'Callaghan also feels the announcement wasn't the determining factor when it came to Sam not carving out a permanent place in the NFL: "I wouldn't solely put the blame on him coming out of why he didn't make it."
But does Weiss view the experience of working with Sam in 2014 as the first crucial trickle of a watershed moment?
"There's still a long way to go, for sure. It's hard for me to say what impact Michael necessarily had on it because there have been a lot of athletes who have come out in other sports since then - not in the NFL - but have been received totally positively or even in neutral ways which is optimal," he says.
"But with the NFL, I just think it's not in a place yet where an openly gay athlete [could come out], it wouldn't be a seamless transition really.
"There was an interview I did in March of 2014 where I said, 'Sports used to be the most progressive part of society'.
"Obviously, this is where the colour barrier was broken with Jackie Robinson in baseball and that was a hugely unifying for society ultimately.
"So I don't know at what stage this happened but I guess at some point, sport kind of fell behind where the rest of society is."
O'Callaghan remains optimistic that American football will catch up with where society based on his conversations with the NFL Commissioner and other players.
"But it'll happen. Somebody will be the first," he says.
"There are plenty of closeted guys. But when I do hear from them and listen to their stories and concerns about why they're not comfortable coming out - everyone's situation's different - I try to point to the positives obviously.
"I try to show other examples of athletes obviously in other sports that have come out and it's really propelled their careers.
"I try to let them understand how big of an impact them coming out while they're playing would actually have.
"But everyone has to do it when they feel like it's the right time to themselves. But it is nice that guys do reach out and it's helpful for them to get it off their chest. But it really is only a matter of time before one of these guys come out.
"I've met with the commissioner of the NFL Roger Goodell. We chatted about what he can do to help the next closeted guy," he said.
"He asked me, he does care. There are ways that the NFL can help and manage it."
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