San Fransisco 49ers, The NFLs Golden team Options

[NYPAO13]

QB Josh Johnson signed with the 49ers. He had a monster season playing under Harbaugh in San Diego St. He will be the backup QB. Only a matter of time til he's the starter.

[Red Spartan]

^^Yeah sure

Lets see if he can beat out kaepernick for the back-up job before we start talking about him becoming the starter.

This guy was Byron Leftwichs back-up in 2009, saw no snaps in 2010, and in 2011 played one game for an injured freeman.

Hardly anything to write home about, or give anyone reason to believe he will win starting job for the 49ers... he was brought in to battle for the back-up job, and the move says more about what the club thinks of Kaepernick than A.Smith.


In other news, we've apparently resigned Ted Ginn Jr. to a 1 yr deal...

link

[TGC]

I was hoping Johnson would sign with us but the draw of working with his old college coach makes sense for him. It also doesn't help that our entire staff was at RGIII's pro day on the day he came to visit... lol

[Giourkas]

I'm glad to see that Ted Ginn Jr. will be back! If only he weren't injured for the NFC championship game....

[Red Spartan]

^^Tell me about

This upcoming season, i dont see him doing much outside of returning kick-offs and punts (if the recievers stay healthy). Last year , he was our #2 wide-out for half the season

[Giourkas]

A look at the NFL's greatest dynasty, the 1981-1994 49ers!!

It all starts in 1981 (13-3)... Bill Walsch, Joe Montana, Dwight Clark, and the Catch. The king is dead (Dallas)! Long live the new King!!!


1984, return to the throne after having lost the 1983 NFC CG to the Redskins on a blown call, 15-1 (should have been a perfect season if not for another blown call)


1988, Some of the core guys from the first 2 SB wins had moved on and new guys were brought in (Jerry Rice, Brent Jones, Steve Young, etc..) turbulent season (10-6), team rallies down the stretch and becomes an "extension" of each other. The "finesse 49ers defeated the Chicago Bears 28-3 in Soldier field in the NFC CG. Joe Cool drives the team 92 yards with 3 minutes left to beat the Bengals 20-16 for their 3rd SB. Walsch retires that very night..


1989, under new headcoach Seifert, "The Corprate 49ers" go 14-2, winning becomes a business.
NFC Divisional Playoff: SF 41, Vikings 13
NFC Championship: SF 30, Los Angeles Rams 3
Super Bowl: SF 55, Denver Broncos 10
Enough said...


1994, (13-3) after narrowly missing out on a threepeat following a Roger Craig fumble late in the 1990 NFC CG vs the Giants, the 49ers are a team in transition yet again.. Montana, Lott, Rathman among others are traded.. The team gets beaten in 2 NFC CG by Dallas in 1992 and 1993. The team retools through free agency (Sanders, Jackson, Oates, Norton Jr.) and the draft (Floyd, Bryant Young) and they finally take care of business vs America's team on the road to their 5th SB win vs the SD Chargers.


the team won 5 SB in 13 seasons and also played in an additional 4 NFC CG in that time. They also won their division 11 times out of 13. Doing so with 2 different head coaches, and going through 2 major changes in player personel (1985-87 and 1990-1993). The League introduced the Salary cap in large part to San Francisco's dominance... They had established a new level of excellence and a season with no Sper Bowl win was considered a failure... Enjoy!!!

[Red Spartan]

Nice post

I watched all of those quite recently.... great memories

NOBODY can brag a 15 yr period of domination like that, and if a few bounces had of gone our way, we could have probably had another 2 Sbs to add to the 5.

6 for sure.... Roger craig fumble in 1990/91 in the NFC championship....

[aek66]

i watched the 1984 49er season video and i was waiting for gene hackman to tell me that the 49ers beat up the bears sans jim mcmahon. i remember this game as the 49ers eliminated the ever dangerous and ridiculous steve fuller while mcmahon was still pissing blood from having his kidney squeezed by the raiders weeks earlier.

no doubt the 49ers were the team of the decade. the 49ers beat the bears in the 84' and 88' nfc championship games and had the bears number....after buddy ryan left town for philadelphia - and i didn't mind seeing ditka getting humiliated on national tv.

yet, i do remember the bears and buddy ryan shutting down the 49ers vaunted offense during the 83' season (49ers score 3 points in chicago) and during the 85' season (49ers score 10 points in candlestick). 2 defensive ass-kickings, regardless of what walsh said about tough-guys being dummies.

the perfect storm for a super conference rivalry over a decade, only to see mcmahon injured too often and the bears with a maserati defense and a amc pacer offense.

[Red Spartan]

bears with a maserati defense and a amc pacer offense.

This is the Bears in a nutshell since ive been watching the NFL (85/86)....

[PPFRESH]

wow, interesting. Aek66 I recall watching that game and while McMahon was certainly a much better quarterback than the howdy doody Steve Fuller, I still think that the Bears would have lost, even with McMahon.

BTW, RIP Derrick Thomas who killed Steve Young for a safety in that Nineteen Ninety Four video. Boy did the league miss him after his untimely death.

This post has been edited by PPFRESH: Mar 26 2012, 09:41 PM

[Red Spartan]

DT was a phenom.... imo the best pure pass rusher ive probably ever seen (no doubt there are arguments to be made for a few others)....

[aek66]

i look at it this way:

to those that watched the bears during buddy ryan's time...spotting a super defense for any era is easy. the bears of recent vintage had, and have, nowhere near the defense the bears had during most of the 1980's.........despite (what i think), national football media trying to paint the bears as the old bears with a very tough defense. no such thing as vanilla or bend but don't break...etc...in 1983-1984-1985-1986-1987...if a bears opponent got 2 consecutive first downs, there was something wrong.

i did think the 49ers of that decade had a very underrated defense (beginning and end of decade despite almost full turnover of personel)...but the 49ers defense wasn't the bears defense.

the difference was offense, where the 49ers were a universe ahead of the bears. walsh over ditka by light years in many facets. the only intangable that could have countered walsh was the genius of ryan, but he left and the 49ers deserved the title as team of the 1980's.

i can only offer conjecture, but a healhty mcmahon would have seen different NFC title games, in 1984 and 1988. out with the kidney in 1984 and by 1988, mcmahon couldn't throw more than 20 yards with a shoulder that was destroyed.

during the 1980's, i think the bears had the best defense - maybe the best of all time. i thought the giants had a very good defense during the mid 1980's (and coach) which peaked in 1986. the redskins had another terrific coach in gibbs.

none of those teams were as complete at SF.

[Red Spartan]

i did think the 49ers of that decade had a very underrated defense (beginning and end of decade despite almost full turnover of personel)...but the 49ers defense wasn't the bears defense.

Fully agree about the niner defence (during the entire 13 yr run minus 92,93), but I think this can simply be chalked up to the ridiculous offence outshining a very good defence.... Offense is what makes the people oooh and awww at the end of the day....

No doubt the Bears vaunted '46' D was the best in the 80s and easily one of the best all-time.... Especially the year they won the title....

Giants and Skins were also very good teams... I loved that era

Classic NFC battles come play-off time in those days... I have to throw the Vikings in their too tho... maybe not to the extent of NY,Was, Chi, but there were a few yrs where they had excellent teams (91/2 sticks out where i felt they were a better team that the eventual champion redskins)... I remember guys like Kieth Millard, Chris Doleman, A.Carter leading the way for them....

[aek66]

it was a very good era, especially if you backed a top NFC team. the nfc regained control of football after the afc had the 1970's. i think the afc was leaps and bounds ahead of the nfc in terms of offense during the 1970's, while the worm turned and the nfc took control with much better defenses in 1980's - along with the 49ers trend-setting offense.

nfc title games usually produced the super bowl winner and those championship games eneded up being more entertaining and competitive than most of the super bowls.

I recall watching that game and while McMahon was certainly a much better quarterback than the howdy doody Steve Fuller, I still think that the Bears would have lost, even with McMahon.

maybe...but, it would have been a different game.

the bears had to use some trickery (payton TD pass) to win the game in washington. ok, maybe 1 game, not 2 in a row, especially at playoff level.

[Red Spartan]

NFC title game was the 'real SB' for years and easily were better games thanm most SBs of that time. Fully agree.

As for the 70s, from what ive read i get the picture that the NFC (old NFL) was the more 'traditional' and oldest league. The game was played with tough D, and conservative running games, wheras the AFC (old AFL) came later, and was more of a 'gimmick' league that relied on more exciting offences to steal the NFcs 'shine'.

Also, when the leagues merged, some NFL/c teams had to move over to the AFC/L in order to balance out the new confrences, and some of those teams employed their old NFC style (hard running and defence) up util the league became this pass crazy show. Cleveland and Pittsburgh come to mind....

[aek66]

sounds right to me.

also agree about too much passing...the league tinkered with the rules and they got what they wanted.

[Giourkas]

For me, the 1989 team just may be the best team to win a SB. That team had the best offense as well as the best defense in the league that year... They scored a combined 126 points and conceded only 26 in their 3 playoff games!!!

@Aek66, although not mentioned in the videos, the reason Walsch had such disdain for Ditka was because the latter publicly made fun of the " finesse 49ers"... It was walsch's way of motivating his hard hitting guys like Lott... He also stressed intelligence in dictating the game and "beating your opponent to the punch".... They did just that...

[PPFRESH]

maybe...but, it would have been a different game.

the bears had to use some trickery (payton TD pass) to win the game in washington. ok, maybe 1 game, not 2 in a row, especially at playoff level.

I see where you are going with this: the Redskins faced a Bears team which had no choice but to play Walter Payton at quarterback for some crucial minutes as Steve Fuller received a knock and his scrubby understudy with a weird name: Lisch, proved to be the most ineffectual (back-up) quarterback of all time.


I had some time to hang out with McMichael like a year ago. He was a weird guy and it was really apparent that he was having tough time coping with the glory days being over. I had to cover my mouth when I realized nobody at the hidden bar where I was at even recognized him.

Between drinks we spoke about the eighty five bears and I asked him what the bears would have done against the dolphins had they met in the Superbowl instead of the less fancied patriots. He insisted that they were out for Marino's blood and that he would not have survived the first half. Have to love that kind of talk.

This post has been edited by PPFRESH: Mar 26 2012, 11:17 PM

[aek66]

yes, this was talked about awhile ago.

ditka was the tough-guy, the grabowski, the 3 yards and a cloud of dust, get in your face type. walsh was the brainiac, the intellectual...the cheese and wine type.

ditka lapped this up, but this persona (fueled by the media and ditka himself) did him no good when he matched wits with walsh.

i do believe the coaches were at extremes (personalities and football philosophy) and may have looked at each other with some disdain. what sealed the deal was walsh using guy mcintyre in the backfield during the '84 title game and ditka purposely doing the same (the fridge) to rub it in the next season when the bears beat the 49ers in candlestick.

after this game, ditka was caught by police driving home (dui) from the airport. he relished beating walsh and decided to drink heavily on the flight home to celebrate. this tells me of the extreme importance beating walsh and the 49ers was for "da coach".

no dui after beating the giants in the playoffs.

no dui after beating the rams in the 85' nfc championship game.

no dui after the super bowl beat down on new england.

but a dui after defeating walsh in the regular season. the celebration was in proportion to the intensity put in.

[Giourkas]

^do you remember the skit on SNL?:

"-Who's gonna win?
-Da Bears!

-ok let's make it fair... The 49ers vs Ditka?
-Ditka!"