49ers Get Taylor-Made Finish : Super Ending Shuffles Off Bengals, 20-16

To the 49ers go the ‘80s. With a drive for the ages, they reeled in a decade, which is only fitting, since they started it off the same way.

In 1981 NFC championship game, Joe Montana rallied San Francisco over the Dallas Cowboys with a desperate 89-yard drive, ending it with a touchdown pass play to Dwight Clark.

On Sunday, the 22nd day of 1989, Montana rallied them over the Cincinnati Bengals with an equally improbable 92-yard drive, ending it with 34 seconds left on a 10-yard touchdown pass play to the unheralded John Taylor for a 20-16 victory, their third Super Bowl championship of the ‘80s, breaking their tie with the Raiders and the Washington Redskins.

What do they do for an encore?

Maybe nothing. San Francisco Coach Bill Walsh has been hinting he’ll retire and break up his magic partnership with Montana, the one that survived so narrowly this season after Walsh’s early attempts to ease his veteran out in favor of Steve Young.

Ask the Bengals, Montana . . . and Jerry Rice . . . won’t go quietly.

“It was just like ’81 . . . watching them make that drive against the Cowboys,” said 49ers safety Ronnie Lott. “Don Griffin came up to me and said, ‘You got to believe we’re going to win this one.’

“The same thing happened in 1981. Archie Reese came up to me and said the same thing.”

It was one of the poorest Super Bowl games . . . and the series’ greatest finish. It was 3-3 at the half. There were no touchdowns until the game was 44:26 old, when Cincinnati’s Stanford Jennings returned a kickoff 93 yards to give the Bengals a 13-6 lead.

Whereupon Montana, who’d been held to 131 yards passing to that point, picked up another 81 in a hurry on four completions in five plays, the last a 10-yarder for the score to the one, the only, Jerry Rice.

Rice had sprained his right ankle in practice Monday . . . and had been spotted dancing at a local beach club named Penrod’s Wednesday night. He limped off once in this game to get the ankle retaped, but he was in at the end--11 catches and 215 yards worth.

Could these guys suck it up or what? Lott, the free safety whose hits on 230-pound Ickey Woods shook the stands, stuck it out through a late Bengal drive, remaining in the game, doubled over between plays, shaking off backup Tom Holmoe, who came out onto the field, took him by the arm and tried to ferry him to the sideline.

Were these guys tested, or what?

After the AFC absorbed successive wipeouts at the hands of the Redskins, Giants, Bears and 49ers, by the Broncos, Broncos, Patriots and Dolphins, respectively, an AFC team finally came to play.

It was the Bengals, who broke the 13-13 tie late in the fourth period, marching 46 yards to the San Francisco 22 . . . as Boomer Esiason picked up a third and 13 with a 17-yard completion to Ira Hillary in front of Talkin’ Tim McKyer . . . and Woods ran for 22 yards in 5 carries . . . and Jim Breech kicked his third field goal, a 40-yarder that gave the Bengals a 16-13 lead, with a mere 3:20 between them and the upset of the decade.

And then, before Montana could try to rally anyone, a 49er bomb squadder was flagged for holding on the kickoff and the Niners were penalized back to their 8-yard line.

Onto the field ran the offense, 92 yards away from paydirt with America peering over its shoulders like 200 million buzzards getting ready to cackle.

How does that feel?

“I think it’s sobering,” 49er center Randy Cross said.

“It gets your attention.”

By all accounts, the 49ers’ huddle was quiet and businesslike, with one or two people like Cross saying peppy things like, “We got to believe,” and Montana, quiet as usual.

And here’s how it went:

First and 10 at the 8--Montana throws over the middle to Roger Craig for 8 yards.

Second and 2--Montana hits John Frank for 7 as the clock keeps running.

First and 10 at the 23--Montana hits Rice, who has being given plenty of room by Bengal left corner Lewis Billups. Rice steps out at the 30 for a 7-yard gain.

Second and 3--The Niners try to catch the Bengals by surprise with Craig carrying up the middle on a draw play. The Bengals aren’t surprised; they stop Craig for a 1-yard gain and the clock runs down to the 2-minute warning.

Third and 2--Craig rips off right tackle for 4 yards and a first down. Cincinnati defensive end Jim Skow is hurt and the 49ers can have a free timeout if they see it, but they don’t and call their first timeout.

First and 10 at the 35--Montana hits Rice for 17 yards on a sideline pattern. Rice beats right corner Eric Thomas and steps out of bounds at the Cincinnati 48, with 1:34 left. Montana says later he was delighted to find Rice being covered man-to-man.

First and 10 at the Bengal 48--Montana hits Craig over the middle for 13. The clock keeps running.

First and 10 at the Bengal 35--Montana overthrows Rice, running another sideline pattern against man-to-man coverage by Thomas.

“I overthrew him,” Montana said later. “I was sitting there screaming as loud as I could (at himself) and I hyperventilated. I got dizzy. I almost called time out, but it faded away.”

Second and 10--Cross is penalized for being downfield. The 49ers are set back to the Cincinnati 45, with 1:00 left.

Cross, the 3-time Pro Bowl choice playing in his final game, is having a grisly end to a fine career. Besides this penalty, he also has a bad snap, leading to a botched chip-shot field goal, and a holding penalty.

“With the plays I had in this game,” Cross says later, “I owe a lot to Joe Montana.

“The bad snap? I could tell you it was low biorhythms . . . or the curvature of the earth . . . or the ball was in a divot . . . or the mood wasn’t right. The bottom line, it was bad concentration. Hence, a bad snap.

“A bad snap, a holding penalty, an ineligible downfield. I mean, you’ll be amazed at what kind of game I’ll have had 10 years from now when I look back at this one.”

Suffice to say, the last penalty didn’t seem as funny at the time.

Second and 20--Montana hits Rice, who tears away from Bengal safety Ray Horton and runs for another 15 yards, making it a 27-yard gain and a first down at the 18.

Everyone says this was the play of the game.

Everyone is right.

“It was bump-and-run at first,” Rice says. “I got away from his (Billups’) bump. That was really something I thought I wouldn’t be able to do earlier this week.”

Says Bengal safety Ray Horton: “I thought that was the biggest play of the game. We were in a perfect coverage for it and I just didn’t break on it. I should still be running with the ball. I was the one who hit him originally and missed the ball. But it should have been an interception on our part--on my part.

“I think he’s the best at the ball, if you know what I mean. Some people let the ball play them. He plays the ball. When the ball’s up, he goes and gets it, where other players just run out and let the ball come to them.”

First and 10 at the 18--Montana passes over the middle to Craig, under a zone coverage, who runs it 8 yards to the 10. The 49ers take their second timeout with 39 seconds left.

“A fairly conservative-type throw because now we’re in field goal range,” 49er quarterback coach Mike Holmgren said.

Were they going for the field goal?

Not as far as some of them were concerned.

“As soon as we crossed their 30,” says Cross, “we were going for their throat.”

Second and 2 at the 10--The Bengals are playing zone, as the Niners expect them to, and Montana zips a 10-yard touchdown pass to Taylor, his first reception of the night.

Ballgame.

“Taylor was lined up at the tight end,” Horton says. “It didn’t pose a problem, until Rice came in motion to that side. When he came, I had to widen out a little bit, widen my area of responsibility. It gave Taylor more room to operate. He shot right inside. Before I could react, the ball was in there.”

What is there to say, but hail to the 49ers?

“I mean, what could you say?” said Bengal safety David Fulcher. “They beat us. They did what they had to do to beat us, but it wasn’t easy. I guarantee you, it wasn’t easy.

“We played with ‘em. It wasn’t like it was easy. They were the guys who were supposed to win easy, from the time we got here. San Francisco was supposed to walk away.”

So the 49ers limped away, instead with crazed smiles on their faces and a song in their hearts.

In the 49ers’ dressing room, they did a parody of the Bengals “Who dey?” cheer. Talkin’ Tim McKyer, who had sneered publicly at the Bengal receivers, and been beaten by them for about five completions, announced that the 49er defensive backs had “just owned ‘em, that’s all. Just owned ‘em.”

Tim has a big future in the entertainment business.

Thus did the sorcerer, go Walsh, best his old apprentice, Sam Wyche.

It was a fair contest. The sorcerer had a magician named Montana on his side and the ‘80s disappeared up their sleeve. Hail to the 49ers, indeed.