How the 49ers won 5 Super Bowls in 14 years.

we have had some pretty good drafts of late!

we drafted the most dominant MLB in the NFL. we drafted the most dominant TE in the NFL. We have one of the most athletic LTs in the NFL. We drafted one of the most prolific WRs in college history.

Originally posted by MadMartz:
we have had some pretty good drafts of late!

we drafted the most dominant MLB in the NFL. we drafted the most dominant TE in the NFL. We have one of the most athletic LTs in the NFL. We drafted one of the most prolific WRs in college history.

Yea those are all first rounders though, I want to see us draft great players in the 2nd/3rd/4th round etc...I was looking at the Cardinals draft picks and a lot of their top players besides Fitz/Boldin/DRC are drafted in the 2nd/3rd round and are playing pretty good compared to our draft picks. None of ours have really panned out

In most of those drafts, you are only looking at 1 guy per draft that contributed.

The '86 draft is widely considered one of the best in NFL history, so matching up to that one is a tall order.

So far, McG has had 4 drafts. He has taken contributors in every year...

2005:
Alex Smith (assuming he continues to improve)
Frank Gore (One of the best in the league)

2006:
Vernon Davis (emerging as one of the best in the league)
Parys Haralson (Solid, but not a star)
Delanie Walker (great #2 TE in a 2 TE spread formation....allows the 49ers to have 2 of the fastest TE in the NFL in one formation)

2007:
Patrick Willis (Barring Injury, may be a HOF player)
Joe Staley (Cornerstone at LT)
Ray McDonald (Solid contributor in the D-Line rotation)
Dashon Goldson (promising player at safety)

2008:
Chilo Rachal (I know he has struggled at times this year, but I really think this guy is going to be good)
Josh Morgan

2009:
Michael Crabtree (playing VERY well despite no training camp and out the first 5 weeks of the season)
Too early to tell with the rest of the class.


Has McG had a 1986 season draft? No. I'll grant you that. Have these been the best drafts in the NFL in his tenure? No, again I grant you that.

However, If everything goes as it should this year, he will have drafted 3 Pro Bowlers in 4 seasons (Gore, Davis, Willis) and a number of supporting players.

Thats not NEARLY as bad as people make it out to be.

Originally posted by BirdmanJr:

Originally posted by MadMartz:
we have had some pretty good drafts of late!

we drafted the most dominant MLB in the NFL. we drafted the most dominant TE in the NFL. We have one of the most athletic LTs in the NFL. We drafted one of the most prolific WRs in college history.

Yea those are all first rounders though, I want to see us draft great players in the 2nd/3rd/4th round etc...I was looking at the Cardinals draft picks and a lot of their top players besides Fitz/Boldin/DRC are drafted in the 2nd/3rd round and are playing pretty good compared to our draft picks. None of ours have really panned out

You want to see us draft great players in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th rds of the draft and none of our picks in those rounds have really panned out. Hmmm, well lets see....

Going back to 2004 here are some notable post first round picks...

2004
2nd: Justin Smiley, Shawnte Spencer
4th: Issac Sopoaga
6th: Andy Lee

2005
3rd: Frank Gore, Adam Snyder
5th: Ron Fields

2006
4th: Michael Robinson
5th: Parys Haralson
6th: Delanie Walker

2007
3rd: Jason Hill, Ray McDonald
4th: Dashon Goldston
5th: Tarell Brown

2009
2nd: Chilio Racha
6th: Josh Morgan

Overall I would say our post 1st rd picks have not been bad. Given this small snap shot of the last 5 years of post first round draft picks, Id say we did ok. Some of these guys just need to be coached.

Excellent post! At first my reaction was McC rated a 3 but upon "further review" he gets a 5+. I feel this a make or break draft. I think we'll be in position to get a top tier ROT and a productive pass rusher. The draft is a crap shoot - just look at all the top picks who have bombed out.

This draft will either make him or break him.

We need to spend more money on scouting PERIOD.

i don't get the hatred for scotty.

how the hell can we be praising guys this season, and b*tching about the guy that helped bring them in? yeah i know Nolan was the GM some of the years, but scotty did have a say in the matter.

yeah we could do better, but i don't think he's horrible. drafting hasn't been the issue the past 5 seasons, coaching has (not pointing at sing).

Originally posted by WillistheWall:

Originally posted by Ronnie49Lott:
Barrowed this from Pacifist Viking-


How the 49ers won 5 Super Bowls in 14 years
I don't think the Free Agency/Salary Cap Era (FA/SC) really makes it more difficult for great teams to maintain dominance. You will sometimes hear "conventional wisdom" that before the FA/SC, great teams were able to hoard their talented players because there was no salary cap and no free agency. This isn't entirely true: the San Francisco 49ers, for example, won five Super Bowls between 1981 and 1994 not because they hoarded the same players, but because they consistently drafted well and added talent to maintain their dominance.

The 49ers won the Super Bowl for the 1981 season. They won the Super Bowl again for the 1984 season. Look at who they drafted between those championships. In the 1982, 1983, and 1984 drafts, they drafted starters on the 1984 championship team like Bubba Paris (T), Roger Craig (RB), and Riki Ellison (LB). They won the Super Bowl for the 1988 season with starters like '83 draft pick Jesse Sapolu (G), '84 draft pick Guy McIntyre (G), '85 draft pick Jerry Rice (WR), '86 draft pick Tom Rathman (FB), '86 draft pick Charles Haley (DE), '86 draft pick Steve Wallace (T), '86 draft pick John Taylor (WR), '86 draft pick Tim McKyer (CB), '86 draft pick Kevin f*gan (DE), '86 draft pick Don Griffin (CB), '87 draft pick Harris Barton (T), and '86 draft pick Larry Roberts (DE).
So after winning a championship in the '84 season, the 49ers won another championship in 1988 with 10 starters that they drafted AFTER 1984 (including 8 Super Bowl starters from the 1986 draft--arguably the most successful draft ever). The 49ers won again in 1989 with a similar nucleus. It took a few years, but in 1994 they won again with more new players like CB Eric Davis ('90), Ricky Watters ('91), Merton Hanks ('91), Dana Stubblefield ('93), Bryant Young ('94), William Floyd ('94), and Lee Woodall ('94).

This isn't even a comprehensive, thorough list: I briefly matched Super Bowl starting lineups with the 49ers' Draft History. But this brief look should show clearly that the 49ers didn't merely hoard their talent to win all those Super Bowls. They consistently added talented players in order to maintain dominance, even before the FA/SC era.

Consider this: 1981 championship team and the 1989 championship team shared just two starters (Joe Montana and Ronnie Lott). In a matter of nine seasons, these two championship squads turned over 20 of 22 starters.

Did the 49ers benefit from lack of salary cap and lack of risk of losing players to free agency? Perhaps. But considering they won four championships in nine years by replacing 20 of 22 starters, I doubt they merely hoarded their talented players. The 1994 team played in the FA/SC era, and added key free agents like Deion Sanders and Ken Norton, Jr., so if you'd like, you can even leave them out of the discussion. But between 1981 and 1989, the 49ers maintained long-term success very similarly to how teams maintain long-term success in the FA/SC era: they consistently added quality players to the roster to replace players who either left the team or saw their skills diminish.
Posted by Pacifist Viking at 1:22 AM

Do you think Scot can get players like these or come close?

HELL NO.

He messed up a little though. He said between 81 and 89 we replaced 20 starters. I'm pretty sure that Keena Turner played for both teams. So that's 19 starters

Turner was on the team, but by 1989 he wasn't a starter.

It is really really simple.

They drafted Montana. When you draft a great QB most of your decisions afterwards are going to look like good decisions, because that 1 player is facilitating a successful environment.

When you draft a bust, all your following decisions are going to look bad, because that 1 player is undermining what could be a winning club

No other position can do this to a football team. Also I don't mean that you can field 21 complete rejects around your HOF QB, but everything becomes far more forgiving if you have a stud at QB.

Take the Colts for example, without Peyton, this team would have had a pedestrian decade

[ Edited by danimal on Dec 9, 2009 at 12:46:20 ]

Actually, tell him we won 4 in 10 years with Montana and then 1 in 5 years with Young.

Originally posted by tmg808:
So what's the point here?? Are you saying the draft the 49ers have not been up to par?? Are you saying the 49ers are haning on to too many older players??

YES! Walsh's draft were not perfect but he hit far more than he missed and not just "starters" but real contributors to SB teams. He worked the draft, FA and trades until he had all the parts to make it work. Multiple times.

For the McCloughan haters (scroll to the bottom)

The reason that Cardinals are better:
1) Warner
2) the terrible drafts byDonahue set the 49ers back at least 2 years

Originally posted by Marvin49:
In most of those drafts, you are only looking at 1 guy per draft that contributed.

The '86 draft is widely considered one of the best in NFL history, so matching up to that one is a tall order.

So far, McG has had 4 drafts. He has taken contributors in every year...

2005:
Alex Smith (assuming he continues to improve)
Frank Gore (One of the best in the league)

2006:
Vernon Davis (emerging as one of the best in the league)
Parys Haralson (Solid, but not a star)
Delanie Walker (great #2 TE in a 2 TE spread formation....allows the 49ers to have 2 of the fastest TE in the NFL in one formation)

2007:
Patrick Willis (Barring Injury, may be a HOF player)
Joe Staley (Cornerstone at LT)
Ray McDonald (Solid contributor in the D-Line rotation)
Dashon Goldson (promising player at safety)

2008:
Chilo Rachal (I know he has struggled at times this year, but I really think this guy is going to be good)
Josh Morgan

2009:
Michael Crabtree (playing VERY well despite no training camp and out the first 5 weeks of the season)
Too early to tell with the rest of the class.


Has McG had a 1986 season draft? No. I'll grant you that. Have these been the best drafts in the NFL in his tenure? No, again I grant you that.

However, If everything goes as it should this year, he will have drafted 3 Pro Bowlers in 4 seasons (Gore, Davis, Willis) and a number of supporting players.

Thats not NEARLY as bad as people make it out to be.

Yeah but a few of those players are starters just because we have nobody better at their positions, not because they're starter calibre players. Superbowl teams have 2 or 3 of those guys at the most, we have 5-6 atleast. TBrown started then we found out how much he gets burned. Josh Morgan has been dissapointing and inconsistent this year. Chilo has been a turnstyle but his crappy play has been overshadowed by Baas and Snyder. Dashon Goldson is a SS playing FS because we don't have a FS, and he's not the ballhawk we hoped he'd be and he can't tackle.

If Scotty could have one draft like the 86 draft, not as good but just similar, like a poor man's version of it, we could be in the playoffs right now. Is a draft like 86 reasonable to ask for? Probably not, but other teams pick better players later on in the draft. We have to get good players out of the middle rounds. I could count a bunch of guys on other teams who are contributing right now from this year's draft who weren't in the top 2 rounds. We don't have one of those guys. Look at some of these players:

Louis Murphy, OAK-4th rounder
Victor Butler, DAL-4th rounder
Austin Collie, IND-4th rounder
Jerraud Powers, IND-3rd rounder
Jacob Lacey, IND-UDFA
Brian Hartline, MIA-4th rounder
Bruce Johnson, NYG-UDFA
Kevin Ellison, SD-6th rounder
Mike Thomas, JAX-4th rounder
Derek Cox, JAX-3rd rounder
Terrance Knighton, JAX-3rd rounder
LaRod Stephens Howling, AZ-7th rounder(returner)
Victor Harris, PHI-5th rounder
Captain Munnerlyn, CAR-7th rounder
Julian Edelman, NE-7th rounder


there's more guys and some guys who are lineman but it's hard to find stats for rookie lineman but that's a list of mid round picks who are impact players as rookies. They might not be stars, but they step in and contribute and get on the field in day one. Next year they'll probably be better. I mean you have a hard time finding a guy as good as any of those guys in our draft outside of Crabtree. Taylor didn't do anything. McKillop was replaced by Willhelm off the street when Spikes got injured. Coffee pounded out an amazing 2 ypc, although he looked decent catching the ball when he got in the game. Most of the good players in this league actually aren't 1st rounders, and that we haven't gotten a star from the late rounds, that we haven't gotten multiple impact players from later on in the draft, that's a problem.

Actually just reading through that all I could think was that I miss Bill Walsh and the name that never gets mentioned George Seifert.

Of course, in the 70's, the Steelers won 4 SB's in 6 years with the last one coming in 1979 before #5 in 2005 season and #6 in 2008 season. In the 26 years between SB victories, the Steelers only appeared in one other SB, which they lost. Not coincidentally, the Steelers started winning SB's again once they found their next franchise QB.

The Cowboys won 2 in the 70's as well with the last one coming in the 1977 season and then did not win another until the 1992 season, which started a run of 3 in 4 years. I don't believe they have won a playoff game since.

The Redskins won 3 in 10 years with the last coming in the 1991 season and even did it with different starting QBs. They have not been back to a SB and do not appear to be close.

The Raiders won 3 between the 1976 and 1983 seasons and did not get back to a SB until the 2002 season, which they lost badly to their former coach. They do not appear to be anywhere close to going back to the playoffs much less a SB.

The Bills went to 4 straight SBs between 1990 and 1993, lost them all and have not been close to going back.

The Eagles have been one of the best teams in the NFC over the last 10 years, went to 4 straight NFC Championship Games but lost the only SB they have ever been to.

The Packers won the first 2 SBs and did not get back to another for almost 30 years.

The Broncos lost 4 SBs in the before winning back to back in the 1997 and 1998 seasons but have not been close to going back since Elway retired after the 2nd SB.

The point being, salary cap or no salary cap, winning SB's much less having sustained success is hard. Teams that manage to put all the pieces in place for an extended period of time, then usually have a down period that extends for quite a while. The 49ers are no different than any of the other NFL dynasties.