Originally posted by CardinalGold:
Ah, the memories of that era. It was a great time to be a 49ers fan during the '90s, but also very irritating because we left so many Super Bowls on the table. Bill Walsh had left the roster stocked with talent, but once Ricky Waters left as a FA, the FO waited too long to replace him. Instead of drafting his replacement, they drafted JJ Stokes, who turned out to be a bust. They then started Derek Loville as RB1, and we squandered 2 or 3 years of contention. It wasn't until the signing of Garrison Hearst that we were back in the running (pun intended), but he unfortunately broke his ankle in the NFC Championship game which we lost to Atlanta.
Looking back the biggest mistake was Seifert succeeding Walsh. Walsh was not only the HC but also the key personnel guy. Once he left, draft quality tanked (sound familiar?). Had Mike Shanahan been the successor to Walsh, we would have had someone who knew how to draft a RB. We also would probably have avoided the draft droughts suffered during the Dwight Clark as GM era, which left us with no talent and haunted the team until the Nolan/McCloughan era finally started drafting well again.
I know this is an old post, so not worth debating. But you got so many things wrong here.