49ers’ Attack Becomes Anxiety

A few years ago, Bill Walsh looked like an old man hanging onto football, a consultant to a San Francisco 49er organization that paid no attention to anything he said.

At the same time, Steve Mariucci looked like a young kid in over his head, a gee-whiz intern to a team loaded with veterans that could coach itself.

Walsh left as chaos appeared to be consuming the 49ers. Owner Eddie DeBartolo Jr. had to surrender control of the team because of legal problems, President Carmen Policy bailed for ownership interest in the Cleveland Browns--taking with him personnel director Dwight Clark, and Mariucci was left wandering the halls by himself.

“I know there were a lot of empty offices up there,” Mariucci said. “There wasn’t anybody here to make the decisions.”

So Mariucci did, and in retrospect, brilliantly.

He kept the 49ers competitive, and while many credit that to Steve Young and Jerry Rice, Mariucci distinguished himself from the outset, surviving the loss of Young and Rice in his first game as a pro coach and still guiding his team into the NFC championship game at season’s end.

In two years on the job, his 49ers have yet to lose a regular-season game at home, despite an overhaul of the team’s roster and the emergence of the Atlanta Falcons.

A year ago, there were rumors that Mike Holmgren would replace him after the Packers had eliminated the 49ers from the playoffs and the season was complete. But Mariucci’s team beat Holmgren’s in the playoffs.

Taking into account his age, 43, his level of experience and a front office in shambles, his .781 winning percentage--best among active head coaches beginning this season--is a tribute to his instinctive managerial skills.

And that’s a problem, because Mariucci has proven himself more than capable, and now Walsh is back.

“Oh, darn right, he’d be intimidated,” Walsh says. “I would have been--anyone would have been--having a former coach now as a general manager.”

Wrong word. Mariucci isn’t “intimidated.” He isn’t the type. While having great respect for what he doesn’t know, it’s what he has learned and what he has weathered that would make “anxious” the better word.

And Mariucci should be anxious with Walsh around.

One Bay Area writer has already predicted that former UCLA coach Terry Donahue, now a front office understudy to Walsh, has been brought in to replace Mariucci. Walsh scoffed at such a suggestion but said he expects Donahue to be coaching in the league somewhere next season.

There is going to be friction between Mariucci and Walsh, as there is between any confident coach and assertive general manager. But to what extent and with what results?

By Walsh’s own literary account in “Building a Champion,” written in 1990, “priorities [of general manager and coach] can be diametrically opposed” because the general manager is thinking long term, while the coach is commissioned to win right now.

But what happens if the general manager begins acting as if he’s the coach?

Walsh has already addressed the team twice, before an exhibition game with Oakland, where he suggested the 49ers would get embarrassed, and after an exhibition game with Denver, telling them everyone was laughing at them.

Who’s the boss here?

Walsh is, of course. He is a genius, self-proclaimed or not. He took over an organization in ruins in 1979, short on draft picks to rebuild, and three years later had the 49ers winning the Super Bowl. His teams won three Super Bowl titles, and he closed his pro coaching career with a 102-63-1 record.

Walsh’s impact on the game remains monumental, with nearly half of the coaches in the league having learned much of their offensive philosophy from him.

“Would I coach the team differently than Steve, yeah,” Walsh says. “Would I coach it differently than Mike Holmgren, yeah. But Steve’s great. He’s fine, he’s well-organized and that’s why I enjoy this job--he’s coaching. He’s got the stress on him.”

He sure does, because for the third consecutive year, a flexible Mariucci is operating under new management. He began his career with Policy, who hired him, then a year later the executive offices were dark.

This year he has Walsh and Donahue walking the sideline during practice.

“It would have been tough if Steve had been a head coach for five years when I entered the scene,” Walsh says. “But he had only been coaching for a short time and he knew he had an awful lot to learn. He knew he had to turn it over to someone. Lurking out there are any number of financial problems.”

Mariucci says all the right things about the shadow cast by Walsh, and says he had an offer to take on many of the responsibilities now held by Walsh, but decided it was too much too soon.

Walsh, however, is a monster, which is a compliment. He took over the game of football, and did it his way and only his way. He was president and head coach. He was domineering, sneering, and based on performance, seldom in error.

He left the pro game after taking the 49ers to a Super Bowl win in 1988, and has regretted leaving ever since. Needing a break at the time, he knows now he had too much football left in him.

“I longed to be back,” he says. “I felt I could help with managing the team. In the personnel areas here, there has been a lot to be desired for several years. We were living off our 1989 squad, slowly but surely the talent eroding. I didn’t realize to the extent we were in derelict hands. We were in dire trouble--$27 million over the salary cap and nowhere to go.

“What saved us was the Browns,” Walsh says, the team now guided by Policy. “They saved us. They wanted some of our players with salaries that they had negotiated. I don’t know what would have happened without the Browns.”

The irony of this, of course, is that while Walsh was coaching the 49ers, he never faced the restrictions he will be putting on Mariucci. He had the benefit of working for a generous owner, DeBartolo, who paid well and got Walsh whatever he required to win.

Walsh says he will be on the job for only three years, coincidentally the same amount of time it took him to mold the 49ers into a winner beginning in 1979. Walsh knows all about growing pains. The 1979 49ers went 2-14, 6-10 the following year, and now here in 1999 Walsh begins anew, determined to lower the team’s payroll and undoubtedly some of its potential for success.

“Steve Young has been carrying this franchise for five years,” says Walsh, and unfortunately after Walsh’s initial draft, it appears it will be another five before there is any profound help for Young.

The 49ers, who have only three players left from the drafts in 1995 (J.J. Stokes), 1996 (Terrell Owens) and 1997 (Greg Clark), look as if they will get no immediate help from anyone in the 1999 draft.

Mariucci is going to have to be on his game, and judging by the 41-3 opening defeat against Jacksonville, it’s going to be a tough one.

“The head coach is the central figure on a team,” Walsh says. “I’ve never seen a poor coach and a great general manager win a Super Bowl. I’ve seen some great coaches with almost nonexistent management win. But it’s the coach. Games aren’t won by management.”

Management provides the players, though, and that’s why Walsh insisted on being both coach and ultimate boss while establishing his NFL legacy.

Mariucci has a bigger challenge.