SANTA CLARA — Marquise Goodwin opened up Wednesday about his 49ers season. Once again, he was playing with a heavy heart, the result of another parenting tragedy.
Goodwin and his wife, Morgan, revealed they lost twin boys In November after she went into preterm labor, just over a year after they lost a son to pregnancy complications.
“We experienced another traumatic event in our life that we had to overcome. It was tough at that point of the season,” Goodwin said with his wife at his side on a video that posted Wednesday on their YouTube channel.
Goodwin missed the 49ers’ losses Nov. 25 at Tampa Bay and Dec. 2 at Seattle while the 49ers excused him to tend to his family crisis, which prompted him to fly back from Tampa on the eve of that game.
A year earlier, the Goodwins lost a son to pregnancy complications, and hours after the stillborn death, Goodwin sparked the 49ers’ first win of that 2017 season, a Nov. 12 victory over the New York Giants.
Morgan Goodwin said in Wednesday’s video that the couple learned in last summer’s training camp she was pregnant, and she wanted to keep it secret out of fear of repeated pregnancy issues.
“In November I experienced preterm labor, and I was having contractions, I was in and out of the hospital and placed on bed rest,” Morgan Goodwin said. “That one game when babe had to go to Florida … I ended up getting hospitalized again and I was on bed rest. I woke up at 3 a.m. with contractions that were really bad and rushed to the hospital. They were so bad my water broke.
“My doctor said there was no way the baby could survive, from 19 weeks all the way up to give birth if the water is gone.”
Both boys were lost following complications in an ensuing surgery.
“We’re taking it day to day and comforting each other and doing different things to keep our minds busy,” Marquise Goodwin said.
Goodwin missed four games last season because of leg injuries, starting with a quadriceps bruise in the season opener and later sustaining hamstring and calf issues.
“I tried to battle back and get back in there but just wasn’t running the same, wasn’t able to perform the same,” Goodwin said. “Still was able to make some plays this year but not to my liking, not to my potential.”
Of the 11 games he played this season, he started only eight, with the last one coming on Nov. 12 against the Giants; the 49ers opted to give rookie Dante Pettis more action at split end in the closing weeks.
Goodwin totaled only 23 receptions for 395 yards and four touchdowns, but his average of 17.2 yards per catch matched his mark from his breakout season in 2017, when he totaled 56 catches for 962 yards and two touchdowns.
The 49ers rewarded Goodwin for that 2017 showing with a contract extension that has him set to earn $3 million, $4 million and $6.5 million in base salaries over the next three seasons.
Of this season’s 395 yards, he totaled 126 on four catches with two touchdowns in a “Monday Night Football” loss at Green Bay on Oct. 15..
