49ers’ Greatness Is a Product of the System, Not Players

Before he left the game for good with 11 minutes to go, Joe Montana and the San Francisco 49ers had 11 offensive possessions in Super Bowl XXIV. On eight of those possessions--including four in a row in the second half--they scored touchdowns.

The three times the 49ers punted, they did so without getting a first down. Each time they started a drive with a first down, they ended it with a touchdown. A textbook example of no wasted effort, no wasted opportunities.

But then, the 49ers are a textbook example of how to turn 45 individuals--only two of whom are shoo-ins to make the Hall of Fame--into an awesome football machine.

And they never stop refining it. Even when it comes to the crown jewel.

During the 1988 season, which the 49ers capped by winning Super Bowl XXIII, Montana threw only 11 interceptions in 487 passing attempts, a criminally low 2.3% interception ratio.

Almost impossible to improve on, right? The key word here is almost. In the off-season, 49ers coaches watched film of every pass Montana threw in 1988, noted his tendency to be slightly more interception-prone on certain pass patterns, and eliminated those routes from the 1989 playbook.

The result? Montana threw only eight interceptions in 443 attempts this season, an interception ratio of 1.8%. The best just got better.

If only assessing Montana’s and the 49ers place in history were so clear-cut, so easy. But if it were, what would fans argue about?

The sweat was barely dry on their uniforms after the most lopsided (55-10) victory in Super Bowl history when some were already downgrading the 49ers place in NFL history, despite their four Super Bowl wins in as many appearances, a mark matched only by the Pittsburgh Steelers.

It is hardly the 49ers’ fault that none of their American Football Conference Super Bowl opponents were A Team For The Ages, but it’s true. Twice the 49ers beat the Cincinnati Bengals in very close games in Super Bowl XVI and XXIII, but neither of those Bengals teams were marked for greatness. The same with the Dan Marino-led, defenseless Miami Dolphins the 49ers flattened in Super Bowl XIX, or the pathetic Denver Broncos the 49ers humiliated Sunday.

But the Steelers were revered almost as much for who they beat as who they were. In Super Bowl IX, they beat the Minnesota Vikings with Fran Tarkenton and a superb Purple People Eaters defense led by Carl Eller, Alan Page and Jim Marshall. In Super Bowl X they beat a Dallas Cowboys team quarterbacked by Roger Staubach and led on defense by Ed “Too Tall” Jones, Randy White and Harvey Martin.

In Super Bowl XIII, they beat a defending Super Bowl champion Cowboys team that had added Tony Dorsett. So what if the Vince Ferragamo-Wendell Tyler-Jack Youngblood-Fred Dryer Rams the Steelers beat in Super Bowl XIV were no great shakes. Those Rams were probably as good as any Super Bowl opponent the 49ers have faced.

The other rap against the 49ers is they are not so much great players as they are products of a great system. The 49ers have won four of the past nine Super Bowls, yet who from their defense will make the Hall of Fame? Possibly safety Ronnie Lott, and that’s it. From their offense, Montana is a lock, and so, if he keeps it up a few more seasons, is Jerry Rice. You can hold off on that new construction in Canton, Ohio. The 49ers won’t need their own wing.

Rice and Montana are the 49ers’ best, but is Rice any better than Hall of Fame Steeler receivers John Stallworth and Lynn Swann? Is Montana that much better than Terry Bradshaw? And does anyone think Roger Craig is as good as Franco Harris?

On defense, it isn’t even close. Hall of Famers Jack Lambert and Jack Ham are two of the greatest linebackers in history, and they played next to each other on the Steelers. Hall of Fame defensive tackle Mean Joe Greene is much better than any 49ers defensive lineman, and Dwight White and L.C. Greenwood aren’t far behind.

The 49ers’ lack of superstars gives credence that credit goes more to Bill Walsh’s system than it does 49ers players. Walsh’s system, based on a multiple receivers, low-risk short passing game that overloads anything but perfect defense, has worn much better than Walsh’s abrasive personality.

The greatest service Walsh rendered to the 49ers in their successful bid to repeat as Super Bowl champion was to leave them after Super Bowl XXIII, leaving his brilliant system in the hands of bright, Walsh-trained assistants. This season proved that while Walsh and some of the tension his personality fostered may have outlived its usefulness, his system certainly had not. The 49ers may have been directed by George Seifert this season, but it was Walsh who had authored the book and the screenplay. In Hollywood, he would be owed residuals.

Therein lies the problem when it comes to rating the 49ers in general and Montana in particular. In baseball, there would be no denying Sandy Koufax’s supremacy, no matter who he pitched for. In basketball, there is no denying Magic Johnson’s supremacy. A diamond gleams wherever it is displayed.

But comparisons are so much trickier in football, because football is the ultimate team game. A quarterback who flourishes in one system might not fare so well in another. Could you imagine Johnny Unitas or Joe Namath dropping a certain pass out of the playbook for fear it would be intercepted? Montana did it without complaint, because he is the product of a system, and the system works.

You can say that Montana is the greatest quarterback of all-time, and people will argue that Walsh’s system and, to a lesser extent, NFL rule changes in the 1970s that opened up the passing game have made it so. You can argue Montana vs. Unitas or Otto Graham or Slinging Sammy Baugh all night.

But here’s one thing you can’t argue: Even if you made all the all-time greats forever young again, nobody could have stepped into the 49ers offense and run it any better, or been as awesomely effective in big games, as Joe Montana has. It’s simply not possible.