49ers Show the Chargers How Champions Perform
Remember when the Chargers were 6-0 and Natrone Means was on the cover of Sports Illustrated?
(If you can’t, consult a librarian or an older relative; it actually happened.)
Remember when San Francisco-San Diego on Dec. 11 was going to be a “Super Bowl preview?” Oh, how we pined and we waxed.
Steve Young vs. Stan Humphries.
Ken Norton Jr. vs. Junior Seau.
Jerry Rice vs. Tony Martin.
Yes, the timeless matchups were countless.
By the time the 49ers and the Chargers finally got around to bashing facemasks at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium, however, said Super Bowl preview was found to be sorely lacking.
One Super Bowl-caliber team, to be precise.
The 49ers are still on track. Barring an Achilles’ tendon tear by Young or the sudden transformation of Barry Switzer from official Texas state loon to Lombardi II, the 49ers should sweep their NFC playoff games and spend the last week of January in Miami granting interviews to glazed sportswriters over doughnuts and coffee.
The Chargers, meanwhile, are looking more and more like first-round fodder, looking very Ram-like these days, if the truth be told. Sunday, Means rushed for 50 yards, Humphries threw two interceptions and the Chargers scored 15 points. Since opening the season 6-0, San Diego has gone 3-5, including back-to-back losses at home to the Raiders and the 49ers within the span of six days.
As for Super Bowl atmosphere and tendencies, there was only this:
The NFC team beat the AFC team by 23 points, 38-15.
Looking on the bright side, the Buffalo Bills weren’t anywhere near the place.
San Francisco so thoroughly humiliated San Diego that you’d have thought the cities were comparing bookstores, not football teams. The 49ers passed better, ran better, caught better, blocked better, kicked better, tackled better, coached better, led cheers better--even dressed better. Once again, the 49ers donned their nifty 1957 3-D jerseys while the Chargers, owners of the finest throwback uniforms in the NFL, stuck to their present-day, duller-than-dull navy-and-whites that make them look like the Ram frosh-soph team.
It was so one-sided that former Charger Gary Plummer, who’d devoted the past week to popping off ‘round the clock about his old employers, was moved to pity as he faced the press with a 49er baseball cap jammed on his head.
“It’s tough for them to compete against a team like this one when they don’t match up,” Plummer said. “They don’t have Jerry Rice on offense. They don’t have Brent Jones at tight end.”
Plummer said that he wished Seau “the best of luck in his last two games. He deserves to go to the playoffs. He played his (backside) off.”
But, frankly, Plummer wished Seau had a sounder supporting cast.
“They’re banged up,” he said. “They need to get healthy.”
Perhaps the best indication of how the 49ers felt about the afternoon was Young’s postgame closed-doors harangue for the benefit of his teammates. The 49ers had just beaten a 9-5 team, in their home stadium, by 23 points--and Young senses a roster-wide reprimand is just what the squad needs.
Now, Young addresses the team about as often as San Francisco misses the playoffs. He has always been a leader by deeds--leave the words to Deion Sanders--but Sunday, he stood up and told the NFL’s only 12-2 team, “I don’t want us to get complacent. Things are going well, but we got a little sloppy out there at the end today. Be careful. We have to keep that mean, nasty feeling each and every week.”
A little sloppy?
What, the end zone touchdown celebrations were a step out of sync?
“We were going three, four, five plays and off the field in the fourth quarter. That’s ridiculous,” Young said.
“It’s the things we didn’t do. We had four downs inside the five and we didn’t score (a touchdown) . . .
“We have a certain standard, a way we do things. If we don’t reach that standard, we need to talk about it. Yeah, we played a great game and things went well, but let’s not get complacent about it.”
Young and too many current 49ers remember what happened in 1990, when San Francisco went 14-2 and lost the NFC title game to the Giants. Big fumble by Roger Craig in that one. That’s why bad habits need to be corrected in December, before it’s late January and over and out.
“We might be a little hyper-intense about it,” Young said, “but I’d rather it be that way than the other. Or hyper-vigilant. I guess that’s the word I’m looking for.”
Nit-picking, that would be another word for it.
According to offensive tackle Harris Barton, Young “told us we’ve got to do better in clock management, we’ve got to do better with third-and-one play-calling. When we’re trying to run out the clock, we can’t let the ball go out of bounds or fumble the snap.”
Barton had to admit that, “If those are the only problems we have, we’re all right.” But the essence of Young’s message--do what it takes to get to the Super Bowl and then win it--was nothing Barton could argue with.
“You don’t get any rings or trophies for having the home-field advantage,” Barton noted. Without naming names, he cited a nearby example.
“Winning six in a row at the beginning of the year doesn’t mean nothing, because you’ve still got to play the seventh game. They don’t cancel games if you win six in a row.”
They do if you go 3-5 after winning six games in a row. Then, they start canceling conference championship games and Super Bowl games on you.
Young and his hyper-vigilantes can assure the Chargers of that.