What was the best 49er team that didn't win the SB?

Originally posted by Niners816:
IMO its one of the following:

-1987 (13-2; first in both Offense & Defense)
-1990 (14-2; going for the 3 peat, came 2 points short)
-1992 (14-2; gave Dallas game away with turnovers)
-1995 (11-5; missed steve for 5 games, started 5-4, then got scalding hot, but got derailed on Xmas eve at Atlanta, that Cost us homefield and set up a match up with GB)
-1998 (12-4; finally snapped the GB hold, I also believe if Hearst and BY don't suffer injuries we win SB33. Defense was ave to slightly below, but offense was out of this world good at 425 ypg clip)

1987 - to me COULDA even be the BEST 49ER TEAM EVER.. I have no idea what had happened there, but we were UNTOUCHABLE all year long..

1992 - i remember throwing my Sports Illustraded football phone in my room after I learned that we traded Haley to the Cowboys for a mere 2nd rounder and the rights to swap 1st round positions. I was even more mad to learn that we gave Dallas the go signal to trade Haley away to any team aside the Raiders. I was so pissed because Haley becoming a Cowboy just GAVE their Defense more SWAG than ours!!!! I thought then that this move may have just placed Dallas in our League if not better, and as usual, my SPIDER SENSE was right!!

1998 - if not mistaken, this was the year Stubblefield dominated the league and won the NFL's Defensive Player of the Year.. While we also had the great Woodson and Kevin Greene, Mooch simply just shown the whole world that he's a mediocare coach at the very best. The Packers offense was so damn slow and limited them and yet, he was out coached by Mike Holmgren.

'87, '90, '91, '92, '93, '83, '71, '72.... Take your pick. I'm going to say '87 followed by '90.

From What Iev seen it was 2012.

My guess would be the team that had T.O, Young, and Rice tho

Its 1987 by a mile. #1 on offense, #1 on defense, Montana in his Prime, Lott in his Prime, Jerry Rice On FIRE!! Haley Young Studd, Roger Craig at his Peak. Just came out flat as fck that day and Anthony Carter was catching anything in sight. The 1990 team I feel woulda lost to Buffalo in the Super Bowl because of no running game. The 1992 team that defense sucked with Dana Hall getting abused at Free Safety and Dallas just was better up front where it counted the most the Trenches.

Originally posted by 9moon:

1987 - to me COULDA even be the BEST 49ER TEAM EVER.. I have no idea what had happened there, but we were UNTOUCHABLE all year long..

1992 - i remember throwing my Sports Illustraded football phone in my room after I learned that we traded Haley to the Cowboys for a mere 2nd rounder and the rights to swap 1st round positions. I was even more mad to learn that we gave Dallas the go signal to trade Haley away to any team aside the Raiders. I was so pissed because Haley becoming a Cowboy just GAVE their Defense more SWAG than ours!!!! I thought then that this move may have just placed Dallas in our League if not better, and as usual, my SPIDER SENSE was right!!

1998 - if not mistaken, this was the year Stubblefield dominated the league and won the NFL's Defensive Player of the Year.. While we also had the great Woodson and Kevin Greene, Mooch simply just shown the whole world that he's a mediocare coach at the very best. The Packers offense was so damn slow and limited them and yet, he was out coached by Mike Holmgren.

To the bolded, you described 1997. Stubblefield left for Washington after winning DPOY that year. Mooch kinda got scared s**tless when Steve suffered a concussion in week 1 of '97. Our offense was with Jerry for basically 15 games and we were very conservative. 1998 was balls to the wall offense and an ave to slightly below ave defense but the offense was ridiculous. We threw for 4000 and rushed for 2500.

All good choices but one that I will remember was 1991 when both Joe and Steve went down and Bono was the next man up. The team won their last 6 games and scored at will. They failed to make the playoffs and were arguably the best team in the NFL at seasons end.

Originally posted by RishikeshA:
All good choices but one that I will remember was 1991 when both Joe and Steve went down and Bono was the next man up. The team won their last 6 games and scored at will. They failed to make the playoffs and were arguably the best team in the NFL at seasons end.

The Redskins were rolling that year and woulda beat the 49ers in the Playoffs I feel. I think we woulda kept the game close but then worn down in the 2nd half say like 31-24 type game. The Redskins in 91 had a Powerful run game and a precise deep ball game and had a big fast athletic veteran defense.

Originally posted by RishikeshA:

All good choices but one that I will remember was 1991 when both Joe and Steve went down and Bono was the next man up. The team won their last 6 games and scored at will. They failed to make the playoffs and were arguably the best team in the NFL at seasons end.

I loved the 1991 team. In fact just the other day I profiled them:

Call it a coping mechanism, but when the current season is lost I like to look back at past seasons and kinda stroll down memory lane. '91 was always one of my favorites because of how hot they got after thanksgiving. You figure 1991 had an offseason kinda like we just had in terms of quality of players lost. Basically, we lost the 80's dynasty guys (Joe, Ronnie, Roger, Keena) and had Charles Haley go full retard basically forcing us to deal him. Anyways I thought I profile the team a bit and share it.

1991

10-6, 3rd place in NFC west

OFFENSE - 3rd overall in NFL
Total yards - 366.1 per game
Pass - 249.8 per game
Rush - 116.3 per game
Pass/rush ratio - 55.4%/44.6%
Reception distribution
-WR1 (24.6%)
-WR2 (19.7%)
-FB1 (10.5%)
-HB1 (9.2%)
-TE1 (8.3%)
-WR3 (7.4%)
-HB2 (7.1%)

DEFENSE - 6th overall in NFL
Total yards - 284.6 per game
Pass - 190.1 per game
Rush - 94.5 per game
Sacks - 30
Ints - 12

Misc. season notes
- Steve young averages 9.0 yards per pass attempt.
- rushed for 1861 yards as a team, but the leading rusher was Keith Henderson with 561 yards.
- Cofer was 14/28 on FGs....how this guy hung around for 2 more years is beyond me.
- didn't get over .500 til December 1st
- our 6 loss were by 2, 3, 6, 5, 7 and 3 points.
- beat a 10 win KC playoff team 28-10
- beat a 11 win NO playoff team 38-24
- beat a 11 win CHI playoff team 52-14 (harbaugh was bears starter)
- beat a 12 win DET playoff team that reached the NFC title game and throttled the precursor to the cowboy dynasty team 38-7, by a score of 35-3.

Final thoughts - 12 year old 816 absolutely loved this team. I live in the Midwest and that ass kicking of the Bears was tasty and happened during Christmas break making it even better I would have given anything for this team to have gotten a crack in the playoffs. Washington and Buffalo got extremely lucky not having to face this team firing on all cylinders.

'87 was a special year in the regular season. That great second win in Cincy was awesome. '91 team was really hot at the end of the year, but had 0 running game. Keith Henderson was the leading rusher with like 500 yds.

Originally posted by ElephantHaley:

The Redskins were rolling that year and woulda beat the 49ers in the Playoffs I feel. I think we woulda kept the game close but then worn down in the 2nd half say like 31-24 type game. The Redskins in 91 had a Powerful run game and a precise deep ball game and had a big fast athletic veteran defense.

Question is how much better was Washington in 1991 then in '90 & '92, because we beat them in the playoffs both years. Now the game woulda been in Washington, but I just think the 1991 team was peaking after thanksgiving. I think if they get in they roll to what woulda been number 5. Just my opinion.

Originally posted by zeppfan1:

'87 was a special year in the regular season. That great second win in Cincy was awesome. '91 team was really hot at the end of the year, but had 0 running game. Keith Henderson was the leading rusher with like 500 yds.

We rushed for over 1800 yards as a team....it was just spread out.

The 1987 team and I don't think its that close. After losing the first game, they won 13 of 14 with the one loss coming on the road in New Orleans by 2 points against a Saints team that went 12-3. (Though, it was a strike year and 2-3 games were played by replacement players).

They were #1 in the league in both offense and defense. Jerry Rice had 22 TD Receptions and over 1000 yards in 12 games.

In the last 3 games leading into the playoffs,they outscored the Bears, Falcons and Rams 124-7.

I remember being happy when the Vikings upset the Saints in the wild card round.

And...then the 49ers went out and played flat while the Vikings (and Anthony Carter in particular) played out of their minds.

To this day, I think that is my most disappointing 49ers loss.

The sting went away a little when they rallied after a slow start to win the Super Bowl in 1988, but still, they were so close to possibly winning 4 in a row. They had the best team in 1987 and were a Craig fumble away from winning in 1990 as well.

Originally posted by Niners816:

Originally posted by ElephantHaley:
The Redskins were rolling that year and woulda beat the 49ers in the Playoffs I feel. I think we woulda kept the game close but then worn down in the 2nd half say like 31-24 type game. The Redskins in 91 had a Powerful run game and a precise deep ball game and had a big fast athletic veteran defense.

Question is how much better was Washington in 1991 then in '90 & '92, because we beat them in the playoffs both years. Now the game woulda been in Washington, but I just think the 1991 team was peaking after thanksgiving. I think if they get in they roll to what woulda been number 5. Just my opinion.

Dude Washington lost 2 games that year and one of those losses was the last game of the regular season when they pulled the starters in the 1st half, sure the 49ers were peaking at the right time but that was Young's 1st full year as the starter and he missed 5 or 6 games that year and the secondary was suspect with no more Ronnie Lott back there. It woulda been a hell of a game like around 31-24 type but that year to me was Washington's from the very start. They wrecked people the whole year by a wide margin.

Originally posted by AZ9erfan520:
1992 team would have blown the Bills out of the water. If not for the holding penalty on Guy McIntyre that nullified a confidence shattering 1st drive Jerry Rice touchdown in the NFC Championship game, not only do we win Super Bowl 27, but now its the Cowboys who are chasing us during those 92-95 seasons and we probably get 2 more rings. To me that call hurts worse than the Roger Craig fumble does.

our teams defense was getting old and slow by then, we had to resort to free agency in 94 to fix it,. should have traded young for derick thomas

I was too young to remember the pre 90's teams, but 1992 always sticks out to me because that's considered Dallas's best team ever, and we were actually the better team that year. Just had a catastrophe of a game in the NFCCG.