Where Unitas, Staubach Once Stood, Montana Stands Alone . . . . : He Passes NFL Test of Time

For more than a year, the story has been told and retold in the National Football League. And everyone but the Cincinnati Bengals has had a good laugh.

The Bengals, playing a 1987 game at home, were leading the San Francisco 49ers by six points when, on fourth down with six seconds left, they called a running play at the Cincinnati 30-yard line.

And ran to nowhere.

So the San Francisco quarterback, Joe Montana, had a chance to win in the last two seconds, which, for him, was ample time. The 49ers scored on a touchdown pass, Montana to flanker Jerry Rice, then made the conversion to win, 27-26.

Since that afternoon in Riverfront Stadium, the focus of all the stories has been on the boneheaded Bengals, who, their critics say, should have punted on fourth down.

At the same time, the fourth-quarter artistry of Joe Montana has been generally underplayed or overlooked.

And why not?

What’s unusual about a last-minute winning play by Montana?

The fourth is his quarter.

Who in this century can match him in quantity and quality of fourth-quarter comebacks?

Certainly not the Bengals, who in the recent Miami Super Bowl kept the comeback specialist in business.

That night, they led San Francisco twice in the last 15 minutes, first by seven points and then by three, before Montana caught them with a scoring pass and beat them with another, getting the winning touchdown for the 49ers in the last 34 seconds of a 20-16 triumph.

The memory of that isn’t making a cold winter any warmer in Cincinnati.

It’s no fun losing the same way to the same guy twice in two years.

Yet, losing is the price that Montana commonly exacts from teams that are good enough and bold enough to lead his team in the fourth quarter.

The record:

--As a college quarterback, 1975-78, when he was a starter for 2 1/2 years, Montana brought Notre Dame from behind in the final minutes to win five times.

--As a pro quarterback, 1979-88, including 8 1/2 years as a starter, he has brought the 49ers from behind in the final minutes to win 15 games.

--What’s more, in the last 15 years, the Pennsylvania-born Montana has been the main participant in three other kinds of comebacks.

First, according to his high school coach, Chuck Abramski, who retired recently at Monongahela, Pa., Montana turned the program around there, taking a steady loser to the playoffs.

Then in San Francisco three years ago, Montana made what the doctors termed an unbelievable comeback from a mid-September back operation. Two months after surgery, as the 49ers won on Nov. 9, he threw three long touchdown passes to Rice.

Finally, this season, Montana came back from a place where, he said, he never belonged, a place on the second team. And he brought the 49ers with him.

After they had temporarily promoted southpaw quarterback Steve Young--who beat Minnesota with a long touchdown run in October--the 49ers lost twice, falling to 6-5 in the standings, then rallied with Montana to win seven of their last eight, including the Super Bowl.

Asked about the quarterback who beat him, Cincinnati Coach Sam Wyche said afterward: “I don’t know of anybody who has ever played as well in the clutch.”

Said Cincinnati receiver Cris Collinsworth: “I don’t know what else Joe Montana has to do to prove that he’s the greatest player to ever play this game.”

SCHOOL DAYS

This is what Montana has done so far: 22 fourth-quarter rallies in the last 15 years.

Seven were school-day comebacks at Monongahela and Notre Dame.

In order:

--1974: Pennsylvania 14, Ohio 7. His come-from-behind career began in the annual Big 33 All-Star Classic at Hershey, Pa., where 33 select Ohio high school football players led Pennsylvania’s best in the fourth quarter, 7-6.

With Montana at quarterback, Pennsylvania went 70 yards to the winning touchdown with 2:12 left, then added a two-point conversion.

In 23 years, there has never been a Super Bowl without a Big 33 alumnus on the playing field. This year’s were 49er tight end John Frank, Cincinnati center Bruce Kozerski, and Montana.

--1975: Notre Dame 21, North Carolina 14. In Montana’s sophomore season, North Carolina led in the last five minutes, 14-6. His 15-point rally in a relief role included passes for a two-point conversion and the winning touchdown on an 80-yard play.

--1975: Notre Dame 31, Air Force 30. A week after the North Carolina game, Air Force led in the last 13 minutes, 30-10. In a 21-point relief performance, Montana sustained the winning touchdown drives for 66, 85, and 45 yards.

--1977: Notre Dame 31, Purdue 24. Injured and out of football through 1976, Montana had dropped from the second to the third team as Notre Dame split its first two in 1977. Then Purdue took a 24-14 lead into the fourth quarter. Coming in as Notre Dame’s third quarterback that day, Montana moved the Irish three times, ending a 17-point rally with a 58-yard drive to the winning touchdown with 1:39 left. Promoted to No. 1, he soon led the 1977 Irish past USC in the green-jersey game, 49-14, and on to the national championship.

--1978: Notre Dame 26, Pitt 17. With 13:52 left, Pitt led, 17-7. In a three-touchdown rally, the Irish drove 86, 59, and 29 yards, scoring on two passes and a run by Montana.

--1978: USC 27, Notre Dame 25. With 12:59 left, USC led, 24-6. During what was probably Montana’s greatest three-touchdown, fourth-quarter rally against a good team, he drove Notre Dame ahead, 25-24, in the last 46 seconds. But his defense couldn’t hold that lead. His comeback started with a 57-yard touchdown pass play, continued with a 98-yard touchdown march, and ended with a 57-yard drive to a two-yard scoring pass. The Trojans made the mathematical difference when they broke up a pair of two-point passes.

--1979: Notre Dame 35, Houston 34. With 7 1/2 minutes left at the Cotton Bowl, Houston led by 22 points, 34-12. In a Texas freeze, the Irish got 23 points on a blocked punt by Tony Belden, a run by Montana and a pass by Montana, who, of equal significance, also threw a couple of two-point conversion passes.

Still leading with 28 seconds left, Houston on fourth and one had run for it and missed--at the Houston 29--in a curious preview of precisely what the Cincinnati Bengals were to do against Montana’s team eight years later. The result was also the same. He threw a last-second touchdown pass.

The Cotton Bowl’s wind-chill reading was well below zero when Montana, afflicted with hypothermia, started the second half in the locker room, where the doctors used heating pads, heated blankets and hot soup to bring up his temperature. He came back to have passes intercepted on consecutive possessions before finally warming up in the fourth quarter.

THE PRO LOG

In the 1980s, during a series of 15 remarkable comebacks with Montana as their quarterback, the 49ers have overhauled Cincinnati three times--in three different stadiums--and the Rams four times at Anaheim.

His NFL rallies in order:

--1980: 49ers 38, New Orleans 35. At halftime, the Saints led by 28 points, 35-7. A touchdown run by Montana and two scoring passes made it closer. Next, the 49er quarterback directed a 78-yard touchdown drive, catching the Saints at the wire, and in overtime he finished with a 55-yard field goal drive. No other NFL team has ever rallied to win from 28 points down.

--1981: 49ers 33, Rams 31. In one of the great shoot-outs of this long series, the Rams led, 31-30, in the final seconds, when Montana sustained a field goal drive for 61 yards.

--1981: 49ers 28, Dallas 27. Less than two months later, he sustained the decisive touchdown drive for 89 yards in the final six minutes of the National Football Conference championship game that put the 49ers into their first Super Bowl. With 51 seconds left, Dallas was still ahead, 27-21, when on third and three, Montana raced to his right and threw the winning six-yard pass to roommate Dwight Clark, who was also running to his right along the end line. All this has long since been abbreviated in the Bay Area to two words, the Catch.

--1982: 49ers 30, Rams 24. This time in the fourth quarter, the Rams were again leading by a point, 24-23, when Montana put the 49ers in the game-winning 53-yard drive.

--1983: 49ers 24, Atlanta 20. At 9:16 of the fourth quarter, the Falcons were leading, 20-17, when Montana ended a 71-yard drive with a one-yard scoring pass.

--1983: 49ers 45, Rams 35. After three periods, the Rams led by 11 points, 28-17, whereupon the 49ers scored 28 fourth-quarter points on a fumble, two long drives ending with Montana passes, and then an interception.

--1983: 49ers 24, Detroit 23. After the Lions had moved ahead in the fourth quarter, 23-17, the 49ers drove 70 yards to win on a 14-yard pass by Montana with 1:23 left in the playoff game.

--1984: 49ers 30, Detroit 27. In the first game of the 49ers’ 18-1 season, which climaxed with a Super Bowl victory, Montana ended a see-saw shootout with a 71-yard fourth-quarter drive to the winning field goal at 14:56.

--1984: 49ers 23, Cincinnati 17. After throwing four interceptions, Montana fell behind in the fourth quarter, 17-16, then won it at 13:21 with a four-yard scoring pass, ending a 58-yard drive.

--1986: 49ers 29, New England 24. After New England had carried a 17-16 lead into the fourth quarter, Montana moved the 49ers to two field goals and a touchdown.

--1987: 49ers 27, Cincinnati 26. When Cincinnati’s fourth-down run misfired at the Bengal 30 with six seconds left, Montana threw the winning pass to Rice.

--1987: 49ers 24, New Orleans 22. When a blocked punt put the Saints ahead in the fourth quarter, 19-17, Montana drove the 49ers 80 yards in the noisy Superdome, scoring the winning points on a 14-yard pass.

--1988: 49ers 20, New York Giants 17. After starting the season with a shaky victory at New Orleans, 34-33, the 49ers still didn’t resemble an NFL champion in their second game, particularly in the fourth quarter, when they fell behind the Giants, 17-13. But with 42 seconds left, Montana zipped one 25 yards straight down the field to Rice, who ran it 53 fast yards to the winning touchdown.

--1988: 49ers 24, Rams 21. Going into the fourth quarter, the Rams led, 21-17, before Montana, on third and 19, started the winning 93-yard drive with a 31-yard completion. On a 429-yard day for the 49er offense, Roger Craig scored the winning touchdown.

ONE MORE

In Super Bowl XXIII:

--1989: 49ers 20, Cincinnati 16. With 34 seconds left in the third quarter, it was 6-6, and it hadn’t been a well played game.

It was still interesting because it had been a Super Bowl anomaly--an evenly contested game--but the two quarterbacks and their teammates had made so many errors in the first three quarters that neither offense could score a touchdown.

The defenses had seemed better, but not that much better, and at least one of the kicking teams, San Francisco’s, had played wretchedly.

And then, suddenly, a Cincinnati kick returner, Stanford Jennings, was racing for a touchdown, and in a wink it was the most stirring of all the Super Bowls.

An even 15 minutes later, with 34 seconds left in the fourth quarter, the 49ers had come from behind to win. For the spectators, high drama. For Montana, just another comeback.

In his last 15 minutes on the field, Montana completed 83% of his throws, 12 of 15, for 222 yards.

Challenged by Jennings’ run, he briskly completed three of four for 85 yards to get the 49ers even, at 13-13.

Then, challenged by a Cincinnati field goal with 3:20 left, he completed eight of nine for 97 yards, throwing the winner to John Taylor in the end zone 10 yards away.

Montana on that last clutch drive overcame a holding penalty with a 27-yard pass to Rice on second and 20. Thus he sustained the drive an actual 102 yards.

Another day, another fourth quarter, another kill.

ANALYSIS

The facts are incontestable. As a fourth-quarter quarterback, Montana is both figuratively and literally hard to beat.

If Hall of Famers John Unitas and Roger Staubach were the comeback champions of earlier eras, Montana holds that distinction now.

Of these three, none exhibited first-round skills early on. Instead, what they have shown in common is the inner strength to excel, to make the most of the talent they were born with.

Montana, in addition, is conspicuous for two other qualities.

The first is a remarkably intuitive feel for the role of a passer--for throwing a football at just the right time to just the right place.

The second is a gift for playing cool.

Whereas most great quarterbacks--Staubach, Joe Namath, Terry Bradshaw, Norm Van Brocklin, Bobby Layne--won as intense competitors, Montana wins as a strikingly cool customer.

On game days, early in the day, or late, he is a matter-of-fact athlete, smooth, changeless, visibly relaxed, obviously ready. If a clever play fails in the first quarter, he relaxes, and gives it his full attention again in the second quarter, or the third, not to mention the fourth.

It is Montana’s even temperament, his cool-headed approach to each game, each quarter, each play, that sets him apart.

And it is this, no doubt, that makes him a comeback champion. It’s this that makes him a fourth-quarter winner in the tensions and pressures that undermine most.

It is true, of course, that Montana can be rushed. As can any quarterback, he can be blitzed, flustered, overpowered and beaten.

It is also true that the 49ers under Bill Walsh, their three-time Super Bowl-champion coach, have won in many ways. Walsh would rather start fast than finish fast. Indeed, Montana has come out of the chute making big winning plays more often than he has won from behind.

But it is his rare disposition that gives the 49ers an extra chance to win in the fourth quarter.

More than that, Montana as a football player is plainly a product of his talent, his composed inner self and his coaching. And the greatest of these may be his coaching.

Abramski, who in the early ‘70s coached Montana at Monongahela’s Ringgold High School, is of that belief.

“Walsh does miracles handling that team,” Abramski said. “Using Steve Young to push Montana this season was a stroke of genius, the key to their third Super Bowl, even though nobody in the Bay Area could see it.”

Eight years or more ago, Walsh had begun the grooming of Montana by changing the 49er offense. This was in line with his standard operating procedures. Though burdened with as many faults as anyone else, Walsh has more strengths than many coaches, and one of his key strengths is a willingness to adjust to different talents.

The familiar short-pass 49er attack of the ‘80s, based on movement, originated as a response to Montana’s limitations. A passer who is particularly accurate throwing on the run, Montana is neither a powerful pocket passer nor a brilliant defensive reader.

Otherwise, athletically, the thing that the quarterback contributes to the San Francisco offense is an extraordinary aptitude for putting short and intermediate passes on the mark at the proper instant.

He has the touch to get the ball up and away to, say, Rice--a big receiver who has fortuitously come along in an era of tiny defensive backs--or low and inside to, say, Roger Craig.

And with these particular skills, Montana has established himself as probably the NFL’s finest touch passer.

For both him and Walsh, it all came together on the night of the Catch in 1981, when Dwight Clark scored on an end-zone pattern that Walsh had devised as the one instrument that could break the Dallas defense. The pattern was a difficult square-in feint followed by a long square-out catch--the play that launched the 49ers on their Super Bowl career.

Since then they have won more games than any other NFL club, and Walsh, with a feel for both offense and defense, has taught them how to do it.

But no football players can count on blowing every opponent out.

Montana, with his even temper and an unmatched feel for the touch pass, has taught them how to come back.