Three Pictures From the San Francisco Examiner’s Super Bowl 19 Preview

Here is the cover:

A picture of Bill Walsh:

And a picture of Joe Montana, with an inset picture of Joe DiMaggio, from an article comparing the two San Francisco sports icons:

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Montana in October 1991

Joe Montana had in-season surgery for the second time in October 1991, to reattach the common flexor tendon of his right elbow bone. The tendon was partially torn in training camp, then fully torn in early October when Montana was testing it after seven weeks of rest. He came back for one last 49ers game at the end of the 1992 season, against the Lions at home, but Montana’s 49er career was effectively over. During that October, one of his old teammates said Montana had already had at least 50 pain-killing injections in his right elbow.

Still, he did make a comeback. Mike Holmgren, the 49ers’ offensive coordinator in 1991, said: “I got here in 1986, and the first game in my first year, Joe went down with the back injury. I thought, I’ll never have a chance to coach Joe Montana now. Two months later he was back, and he’s given me five years. So there’s not a doubt in my mind he’ll be back.”

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Montana in Retirement

Joe Montana’s retirement followed a very hard hit in the Kansas City Chiefs’ 30-13 loss to the Buffalo Bills in the AFC championship game after the 1993 season, when he was knocked out by three charging defenders. Montana said it “felt like a lightning bolt went right through my head.”

He grabbed his face mask to make sure it hadn’t gone into his skull, and, even though he played for the Chiefs in 1994 and beat the 49ers early that season in the one re-match of Young and Montana after Joe left the team, he said: “For the first time in my life, football began to feel like a job. All of a sudden I was dreading getting up in the morning. When that feeling takes over, you know it’s time, because, chances are, that’s when you’re going to get hurt. You’re not thinking about the game; you’re just thinking about making it through the week, making it through the game. I always thought I’d end up quitting because my skills were deteriorating. But physically, I felt better going into last season than at any time in recent years.”

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The 36-24 Division Round Loss to the Vikings to End the 1987 Season

The 49ers had effectively dominated the NFL in 1987, going 13-2, winning handily in their last three regular season games, and featuring Jerry Rice with his record-breaking season that included 23 touchdowns. It all came to a crashing end with the 36-24 loss at Candlestick to the Vikings in the first game of what was supposed to be a Super Bowl run. Below is the Sports Illustrated cover showcasing Anthony Carter and his fantastic game that led the Vikings to victory:

And here’s a battered Joe Montana in the midst of one of his worst playoff games; people may remember that he was pulled for Steve Young in the third quarter, and that was the start of the Young-Montana quarterback controversy:

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The 1989 Comeback vs. the Eagles

This slightly askew picture of a Sports Illustrated cover shows “Joltin’ Joe” Montana readying to pass in the midst of a sea of Niner and Eagle linemen in the September 1989 game in Philadelphia in which he threw four touchdown passes in the fourth quarter for a stirring comeback win.

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Winning Super Bowl XIX

Here’s the San Francisco Chronicle front page celebrating the 49ers 38-16 defeat of the Dolphins in Palo Alto in Super Bowl XIX:

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Beating the Rams, 24-14, to Close 1986 and Win the West

The 49ers wound up the 1986 regular season with a win over the Rams, in which they outgained the Rams, 408 yards to 229, more than doubled them in first downs, 27-12, and had the ball for 13.5 more minutes.

After 49er Joe Cribbs fumbled with 4:14 remaining, Charles Haley made a sack of Jim Everett on first down, and the 49ers held onto their lead from there. Montana led a 92-yard drive for a touchdown in the second quarter to go up 17-7, got a block on Rams defensive end Doug Reed to help Jerry Rice get a 15-yard run on a reverse in the third quarter, and threw a 44-yard bomb to Rice in the first quarter.

After the game, Jim Everett said of Don Griffin and Tim McKyer, who caught two of Everett’s three interceptions: “Their corners played surprisingly well. They had us confused at times. Some of the things that I did wrong were probably rookie mistakes.”

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Fred Quillan

Fred Quillan was the mainstay center of the 49ers for most of Montana’s time at quarterback, joining the team in 1978 as a seventh-round pick from Oregon and leaving only in the summer of 1988. He was traded to the Chargers for Wes Chandler that summer and decided to retire rather than try to make the move south.

He made the Pro Bowl in 1984 and ’85, then, after his playing days ended, was a coach with the San Francisco Demons of the very short-lived XFL and a coach for the World League in Europe. Looking back on his and Montana’s career, Quillan said: “I remember the worst year of my life was when I told a reporter that Steve DeBerg was better prepared to be our quarterback. Because Joe was so quiet, we just didn’t know about his leadership. Midway through his second season, he proved it. He came into the huddle and it was like a different team. He inspired such respect in us and, more important, trust.”

Quillan added: “That’s why one of the low points of my career was missing my guy in New York during the ’86 playoffs and watching Jim Burt knock Joe out of the game. Joe stayed in New York with a concussion that night, while I went crazy on the airplane home.”

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Jeff Kemp and Montana in 1986

Immediately after the 1986 draft, on May 1, the Chronicle’s Lowell Cohn wrote an interesting column on the ramifications of trading away Matt Cavanaugh and replacing him with Jeff Kemp as the backup to Montana. Of course, Montana’s back injury early in the ’86 season made some of Cohn’s comments sound like prophecy. Some good lines: “The 49ers could be in for big quarterback trouble. Tuesday they traded backup Matt Cavanaugh to the Eagles for attractive draft choices. On the face of it, the deal seems clever – crafty Bill Walsh outsmarting the rest of the league yet again. But it is a risky maneuver.

And: “If Montana were to get hurt, the 49ers would suffer. They are a team that depends upon their quarterback’s sheer brilliance to save them several times a game.”

Talking about Montana in 1985, Cohn said he “was often earthbound and uninspired. Opposing defenses finally figured out that he would throw on the run while going exclusively to his right, and they sent gangs of tacklers to cut him off.

He didn’t seem nearly as brilliant with his escape route taken away, and by the end of the season, he was as battered as a demolition-derby jalopy. In the playoff game against the Giants, his ribs were so sore he could have used a rope and pulley to help him lift his arm.”

Cohn added that before, Montana “played quarterback with a sense of joy and wonder, and he was open with the press. But he got married and had a baby, and it was as though his focus became diluted. All of a sudden, playing quarterback for the 49ers did not seem as urgent to him.

Bill Walsh noticed the change, and publicly criticized Montana for not running the offense the way he was supposed to. Montana, who rarely had been criticized before, became grumpy and snapped at the press. After several good performances, he made writers wait while he dried his hair or just killed time in the trainer’s room. He had become a different person.”

Summarizing the issue of bringing in Kemp, Cohn said: “The 49ers exchanged a starter-as-backup for a backup-as-backup, and in so doing made a Montana injury or mood shift all the more dangerous.

Jeff Kemp is supposed to be a fine and decent man, but the 49ers never will win with him at quarterback, as they did with Cavanaugh. This is the guy who could not beat out Dieter Brock for the Rams’ starting job.”

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Losing to the Giants, 17-3, to End the 1985 Season

Before the 49ers took to the Astoturf at the Meadowlands, the Chronicle predicted a 49ers win, but the 49ers were missing Eric Wright and Randy Cross, and Wendell Tyler was hurting as well. Montana stirred things up a bit by having this to say about Phil Simms’ conversation with him after the Niners beat the Giants in the 1984 playoffs: “He said, ‘I could throw the ball anytime I wanted against your defense.’ I said, ‘Yeah, you moved the ball, but you couldn’t seem to get it in the end zone.’ For a guy that our defense has played well against, he’s got confidence, I guess, edging on cockiness.”

The 49ers were the ones kept out of the end zone in this game. Roger Craig dropped five passes in the second half, four in the fourth quarter, Ronnie Lott struggled on defense with multiple injuries, and the 49ers failed to sack Simms despite many blitzes. It was a pretty bad loss.

Walsh said: “I guarantee you we’ll be back. We’re proud of our organization and what we’ve done – we stand on it.”

Dwight Clark said: “We should have been at least 13-3 and not playing today.”

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