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NFL: 49ers, A Team of Destiny

/noticias.info/ By: Glenn Dickey

As the Super Bowl returns to Detroit for the first time since the 49ers brought home their first Vince Lombardi Trophy in 1982, Glenn Dickey kindly shares his recollections of that magical 1981 season.

The 1981 season was a magical one for the 49ers. The team that had never won more than a divisional championship in its first 35 seasons, that had consecutive 2-14 seasons in 1978 and ’79, was a team of destiny.

The turnaround actually started with the 14th game of the 1980 season. The New Orleans Saints had jumped to a 35-7 halftime lead at Candlestick, and the parking lots were emptying, as disgruntled fans left early. The Saints players were taunting the 49ers with chants of “70 points, 70 points,” as they went into the locker rooms.

Then, Joe Montana took over. On the 49ers’ first play from scrimmage, he hit Dwight Clark for a 48-yard pass, which jump-started an 88-yard touchdown drive. On the second series, he hit Clark on a pass which became a 71-yard touchdown. The 49ers had three more long touchdown drives in the half, gaining 409 yards, to tie the game in regulation. Ray Wersching won it with a field goal in overtime, the biggest comeback in NFL history,

Montana started seven of the final 10 games in 1980, but this game was the first one in which he showed the potential to be a great quarterback, and it was also the first one which showed the potential of the Montana-to-Clark combination which would result in what is still the single most dramatic play in 49er history, “The Catch” in the NFC Championship game following the ’81 season.

The best seasons of Montana’s career came later, in the 1988-90 stretch in which the 49ers won two straight Super Bowls and narrowly missed getting to a third, but he was never more important to the team than in 1981 when he and Clark, who had been only a 10th round draft pick in 1979, were virtually the whole offense.

The 49ers had virtually no running game in ’81 – Ricky Patton led the team with 547 rushing yards – and an undersized offensive left tackle in Dan Audick, who had previously played guard. But Bill Walsh had brought an offensive system to the 49ers which was able to compensate for those weaknesses. His passing game featured outlet passes to the backs which functioned in much the same way as running plays, and he devised pass plays which had Montana rolling to the right, away from defensive pressure, and throwing on the run. “The Catch” came on that type of play.

In the years since, Walsh’s offensive system has been widely copied, but in 1981, nobody in the league was prepared for it. At that time, NFL teams used offenses with featured deep passes, which resulted in even the best quarterbacks not completing much more than half of their passes and throwing about as many interceptions as touchdowns. Walsh’s system depended on high percentage passes, and Montana and, later, Steve Young routinely completed more than 60 per cent of their passes and threw at least twice as many touchdowns as interceptions.

Walsh’s system was designed to “move the chains” for first downs, which helped the defense because the 49er offense stayed on the field for long stretches. He emphasized running after the catch, and 49er receivers turned short or medium-range passes into long gainers. Montana was perfect for that system because of his incredible accuracy; he put the ball in exactly the right spot, so receivers never had to break stride.

Walsh’s system also worked against both zone and man-to-man defenses.

Receivers were taught to take a couple of steps directly at a defensive back. The back’s reaction to that would tell whether he was playing zone or man-to-man, and the 49er receiver would run his pattern in a pre-designed fashion. The quarterback could also read that reaction, so he knew the defense too. There was seldom the miscommunication between quarterback and receiver that is so common for other teams.

Though he was an offensive-minded coach, Walsh knew he had to greatly improve the defense to have a chance to win consistently. That point had been brought home vividly to him in his first season when the 49ers were so bad in the defensive secondary that Walsh held tryouts all during training camp with waiver wire pickups. He would try them out at lunchtime – with Clark running patterns – to see if they were any better than what he had. He got one player in that way, free safety Dwight Hicks, but the 49er defense remained weak through the ’80 season. One of their losses was a 59-14 thrashing by the Dallas Cowboys, when Steve DeBerg was still starting at quarterback.

Walsh knew he had to shore up that secondary, so in the 1981 draft, he picked Ronnie Lott, Eric Wright, Carlton Williamson and Lynn Thomas. Lott, an eventual Hall of Famer, and Wright played cornerback, Williamson took over as strong safety and Thomas played in the “nickel” (five DBs) formations. Hicks, at free safety, was the only veteran. Though it might seem like a gamble in retrospect to start three rookies, it didn’t seem that way to anybody who had watched the ’79 and ’80 teams. George Seifert was the secondary coach at the time and he brought the rookies along swiftly.

In any account of the season, the fifth game was a significant turning point, and the secondary was the key. The 49ers had split their first four games and had yet to show any signs of going to the postseason, but they dominated a good Redskins team in Washington, winning 30-17 in a game they had led, 30-3, in the fourth quarter. The 49ers intercepted four passes, one returned 32 yards for a touchdown by Hicks, who later returned a fumble 80 yards for a touchdown.

There was possibly an even more important event the week of that game, when the 49ers traded for Fred Dean. That also demonstrated the importance of another team, Walsh and John McVay. Throughout their time with the team, Walsh and McVay worked as the ideal tandem. Walsh would come up with the idea and McVay would implement it, in this case, with numerous phone calls before the deal was finally made. McVay was always willing to let Walsh take the credit for the moves they made together, and Walsh was happy with that arrangement, too.

Dean has never gotten the recognition he deserves in Hall of Fame voting, but he was a marvel, an absolutely unstoppable force, with a combination of strength and quickness that was unrivaled among his contemporaries. His ability was genetic, because he never lifted weights. “Any time I feel like working out,” he said, “I lie down until the feeling goes away.” He would sit on a stool in the locker room, puffing on a menthol cigarette, while his teammates worked on the weights.

But, what a player he was! He showed what a difference he could make in the first game he played for the 49ers, sacking Dallas quarterback Danny White twice and forcing him to throw early seven times as the Niners routed the Cowboys, 45-14.

Probably the best example of what he could do, though, came in the eighth game of the season, against the Rams at Candlestick. Walsh had always said the defensive key to success was the ability to rush the quarterback in the fourth quarter. In that game, the 49ers led, 20-17, but the Rams had the ball four times in San Francisco territory in the fourth quarter. Here’s what Dean did on those four drives:

1) On third down, from the San Francisco 37, Rams quarterback Pat Haden was sacked by Dean and Jim Stuckey, forcing a punt.
2) On third down from the San Francisco 46, Dean’s pressure forced Haden to the other side, where he was sacked by Lawrence Pillers.
3) On third down from the San Francisco 34, Dean sacked Haden, forcing another punt.
4) On thee Rams last drive, Dean sacked Haden twice, for eight- and 11-yard losses. The Rams were still able to get to the San Francisco 31. On third down, Dean tackled Mike Guman on a draw play after a four-yard gain. Frank Corral missed a field goal and the 49ers won the game.

With Dean anchoring the defensive line, with the three-rookie secondary getting better by the game and with the Montana-Clark combination leading the offense, the 49ers won 12 of their final 13 games to advance to the NFC Championship game against the Cowboys.
For 49er fans, this was the “real Super Bowl.” The hated Cowboys had beaten the 49ers three straight times in the playoffs, 1970-72. Having just crushed the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, 38-0, the previous week, they came into Candlestick as arrogant as ever, claiming that the 49ers had not seen the “real” Cowboys in the regular season. “Who were those guys out there in the white shirts then?” asked former 49er quarterback John Brodie. “Was that some other team?”

Many times in sports, a game with a big buildup turns out to be a letdown, but not this time. That game remains the single most exciting game I’ve seen in 50 seasons of watching 49er football. From start to finish, it was filled with big plays, starting with a 17-point first quarter.

With five minutes left, the 49ers were trailing, 27-21, and backed up to their own 11, but neither Walsh nor Montana doubted that they could go the distance. The Cowboys also helped by going into a “prevent” defense, with only three pass rushers, which gave Montana plenty of time to pick them apart with short passes – and also gave running room to a surprise starter, Lenvil Elliott.

With just under a minute left, the 49ers had third-and-three on the Dallas 6. Walsh called a play that was a staple in his offense. Montana rolled to the right, as Freddie Solomon cut to the outside and then inside, and Clark made the opposite moves. Too Tall Jones got right in Montana’s face as he rolled out. Solomon was covered, so Montana threw it high to the end zone. Jones thought Montana was throwing it up for grabs. On the Dallas sideline, they thought he was throwing it away. But Clark leaped as high as he could to catch the ball and came down barely inside the sideline. Ray Wersching’s PAT put the 49ers ahead, 28-27.

Most fans remember that as the end of the game but, in fact, the Cowboys had one more shot and got as far as the San Francisco 44. But White was hit by Pillers as he went back to pass and fumbled, and Stuckey recovered to seal the victory.

After that emotional victory, the Super Bowl, being held in Detroit for the first time, was almost an anti-climax. The most memorable moment, in fact, may have come the week before. Walsh had gone ahead to accept an award in Washington, D.C., and he dressed up as a bellman to take players’ bags as they got off the bus at their Detroit hotel.

En route to the game, one of the two 49er buses was held up by the motorcade for then Vice President George H. Bush. But Walsh had his players loose and confident, and they played that way against the Cincinnati Bengals, taking a 20-0 lead into the dressing room at halftime. The Bengals came out smoking in the second half and put a scare into the 49ers, but with Wersching kicking a game record four field goals, the 49ers never trailed and won, 26-21.

It was only fitting because, after all, the 49ers were a team of destiny.

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Glenn Dickey was a columnist for The San Francisco Chronicle for 33 years and now has his own website, GlennDickey.com. Among his 16 books are five on the 49ers, including “America Has a Better Team,” an accounting of the 1981 season, and a 1995 history, “The First 50 Years.” notas_de_prensa_archivo