Josh Norman Explains Why he Signed with the 49ers

Cornerback Josh Norman explains why he chose to sign with the San Francisco 49ers.

Grant Cohn | Sep 10, 2021

SANTA CLARA -- Josh Norman spoke to the media Friday for the first time with the 49ers. Here's what he said.

Q: Why did you wait until the end of training camp to sign with a team?

NORMAN: "I've been blessed to play this game for 10 years. I got my professional degree in football. I can say I've done what I want to do in this league except win a championship, and San Francisco 49ers was at the very top of that list. We've been talking to each other for a while, been courting each other for months. Some other teams were in the mix. Do I care to say which? No, because I'm here. But to say why did I choose to take my time? For me, I wanted to get it right. To have the opportunity to sit out and see who was at the top, these guys stepped up. I had a target date I wanted to hit. I wanted to be signed before the first week before the game. The 49ers stuck with us. I'm here to win a championship. It's not so much about the numbers now as it about putting a ring on my hand and hoisting a Lombardi trophy."

Q: Are you caught up to the point where you could play 40 to 50 snaps this weekend?

NORMAN: "My mindset is. I don't see nothing wrong with that. You always have to be ready to go. That's your job, no matter if you just came off the street or you've been here for a while."

Check out the full interview below.

Published Sep 10, 2021

GRANT COHN

Grant Cohn has covered the San Francisco 49ers daily since 2011. He spent the first nine years of his career with the Santa Rosa Press Democrat where he wrote the Inside the 49ers blog and covered famous coaches and athletes such as Jim Harbaugh, Colin Kaepernick and Patrick Willis. In 2012, Inside the 49ers won Sports Blog of the Year from the Peninsula Press Club. In 2020, Cohn joined FanNation and began writing All49ers. In addition, he created a YouTube channel which has become the go-to place on YouTube to consume 49ers content. Cohn's channel typically generates roughly 3.5 million viewers per month, while the 49ers' official YouTube channel generates roughly 1.5 million viewers per month. Cohn live streams almost every day and posts videos hourly during the football season. Cohn is committed to asking the questions that 49ers fans want answered, and providing the most honest and interactive coverage in the country. His loyalty is to the reader and the viewer, not the team or any player or coach. Cohn is a new-age multimedia journalist with an old-school mentality, because his father is Lowell Cohn, the legendary sports columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle from 1979 to 1993. The two have a live podcast every Tuesday. Grant Cohn grew up in Oakland and studied English Literature at UCLA from 2006 to 2010. He currently lives in Oakland with his wife.