Steve Young on flagship 49ers

LINK HERE

Quote:
By Mike Sando

What started as a question about Pro Football Hall of Fame candidate Charles Haley turned into a conversation that dovetailed with the Super Bowl-week piece on what became of the flagship San Francisco 49ers.

Basically, I had just finished speaking with Steve Young for a series on NFC West quarterbacks when I decided to ask him about Haley, his former teammate and a terrific pass-rusher. Haley played for the 49ers from 1986-91 before spending five seasons with the Dallas Cowboys. He closed his career with two years in San Francisco. Haley's teams won five Super Bowls.

Young's answer was something I wanted to pass along now that I've had a chance to review some notes:

"(Haley) was the tipping point in my mind for a number of Super Bowls. We let him go after the '91 season and in '92 and '93, we lost against him. I'm not saying that was all it was, but that was a significant shift for a guy wreaking havoc for us and then wreaking havoc on us. It's a painful reminder of some of the mistakes we made.

"There are two things in the '90s that cost us. That was one, and letting Ricky Watters go was two. We suffered running the football and having a threat out of the backfield for the second half of the '90s, where we got to championship games, we got deep in the playoffs every year and I think it really hurt us.

"Ricky was a very good player. People did not appreciate him as much as they should have. We won the Super Bowl (after the 1994 season) and whenever you win the Super Bowl, you get too smart for yourself. 'Oh, we don't really need him.' Well, you know what? We do. You say, 'We'll just plug some guys in and we'll be fine.' Big mistake."

That last thought from Young stands out. We've seen other teams pay for letting key players get away following Super Bowl appearances, including when Seattle did not use the franchise tag for guard Steve Hutchinson. The Arizona Cardinals also expected to maintain recent successes better amid personnel losses.

Nice find.

You need a complete team to compete.

Oh, what could have been....

How many more Super Bowls do we win if we keep Watters?

How many more Super Bowls do we win if we keep Haley?

How many more Super Bowls do we win if we keep Deion Sanders?

Even just one of those guys. How many more?

We probably could have won a few more if we gave Montana his throne back.

I recall Montana being able to win the big game with no recognizable RB or defense.

Steve Young should also consider that he choked big time in the playoffs, throwing a poor performance after the next.

Originally posted by Wodwo:
Nice find.

You need a complete team to compete.

Oh, what could have been....

How many more Super Bowls do we win if we keep Watters?

How many more Super Bowls do we win if we keep Haley?

How many more Super Bowls do we win if we keep Deion Sanders?

Even just one of those guys. How many more?

[ Edited by JoseCortez on Feb 8, 2011 at 11:27:07 ]

Steve is dead on.

Letting Watters and Haley go reminds me of when the niners parted ways with T.O. and Jeff Garcia. Yeah, T.O. needed to go, but getting rid of Garcia was premature.

coulda
woulda
shoulda

after watching the 95 Americas Game Niners Superbowl Youtube video and reading this I become sad

Originally posted by Wodwo:
Nice find.

You need a complete team to compete.

Oh, what could have been....

How many more Super Bowls do we win if we keep Watters?

How many more Super Bowls do we win if we keep Haley?

How many more Super Bowls do we win if we keep Deion Sanders?

Even just one of those guys. How many more?

3 or 4.

Montana never had this problem. They down graded certain positions while he was there and they still won.

Originally posted by Joecool:
Montana never had this problem. They down graded certain positions while he was there and they still won.

Um, huge fan of Montana that I am, I can't think of any significant examples of such downgrades, certainly not on the O. Perhaps you would care to be more specific?

Originally posted by JoseCortez:

Originally posted by Wodwo:
Nice find.

You need a complete team to compete.

Oh, what could have been....

How many more Super Bowls do we win if we keep Watters?

How many more Super Bowls do we win if we keep Haley?

How many more Super Bowls do we win if we keep Deion Sanders?

Even just one of those guys. How many more?

That is perfect

Originally posted by English:

Originally posted by Joecool:
Montana never had this problem. They down graded certain positions while he was there and they still won.

Um, huge fan of Montana that I am, I can't think of any significant examples of such downgrades, certainly not on the O. Perhaps you would care to be more specific?

Montana never had any top level RB in 1979.
Roger Craig only had 2 1000 yard seasons and was a downgrade from Tyler.
Young had Hearst for 2 1000 yard seasons averaging far more per carry than Craig.
Fred Dean only had 1 good year for the 49ers.

Steve Young had Jerry Rice in his prime and didn't only have Watters for one year.

The only year Montana won with sub-par talent surrounding him was 1981 when the league was still playing catch-up with what Walsh was doing on offense. The 1984 team had skill position upgrades including Wendell Tyler, Craig and Russ Francis. Then the team was fading a little before the fabulous 1986 draft came along and fueled the back-to-back run after those rookies developed into maybe the greatest single draft class ever to go along with Rice (1985 Draft) and our other HOF'ers.

Then we started to get too cute for our own good as Young suggested when we ultimately had to travel the mercenary route to get over the hump in 1994.