49er dynasty players and coaches who don't get enough credit

Originally posted by bret:
This wasn't quite from the glory years, but the Glen Coffee thread has a replay of the Garrison Hearst 96-yd overtime run against the Jets. If you look closely you'll see Dave Fiore get a good block 30 yards down field that seems to take him out of the play, but then at the end when the linebacker is closing and looks like might catch Hearst, someone gets just enough to make the tackle attempt too little, too late. Who made that block? Dave Fiore again! He was completely out of the play. But through sheer hustle and desire, he got back into it and made the play that allowed Hearst to score!

He only started for 3 years and he wasn't the most talented guy, but that play typified why he was a Niner I appreciated!

None of these guys played on the dynasty teams.. They were good though, especially G.

Originally posted by eastie:

Originally posted by BHulman:

Originally posted by eastie:

Originally posted by Chico:
Bob McKitrick
Jesse Sapulo
Keena Turner
Eric Wright
Freddie Solomon
Charles Haley
John Taylor
Don Griffin...so many, so many...my apologies to the other guys i missed!!!

Jeff Fuller
William Floyd
Russ Francis
Keena Turner
Keith Farnhorst

Guy McIntrye
Jeff Stover
Dwight Hicks
Pierce Holt
Fred Quillan
Carlton Williamson
Steve Wallace
Harris Barton
Dwaine Board

Bubba Paris

Mike Wilson
Rikie Ellison
Jim Reynolds
Dan Buntz
John Frank

Originally posted by eastie:

Originally posted by eastie:

Originally posted by BHulman:

Originally posted by eastie:

Originally posted by Chico:
Bob McKitrick
Jesse Sapulo
Keena Turner
Eric Wright
Freddie Solomon
Charles Haley
John Taylor
Don Griffin...so many, so many...my apologies to the other guys i missed!!!

Jeff Fuller
William Floyd
Russ Francis
Keena Turner
Keith Farnhorst

Guy McIntrye
Jeff Stover
Dwight Hicks
Pierce Holt
Fred Quillan
Carlton Williamson
Steve Wallace
Harris Barton
Dwaine Board

Bubba Paris

Mike Wilson
Rikie Ellison
Jim Reynolds
Dan Buntz
John Frank

No one has mentioned him yet. Without this underappreciated, mostly overlooked and Highly unregarded rb we would not have been in the position we were in 1981. Lenvil Elliot

Originally posted by eastie:

Originally posted by eastie:

Originally posted by BHulman:

Originally posted by eastie:

Originally posted by Chico:
Bob McKitrick
Jesse Sapulo
Keena Turner
Eric Wright
Freddie Solomon
Charles Haley
John Taylor
Don Griffin...so many, so many...my apologies to the other guys i missed!!!

Jeff Fuller
William Floyd
Russ Francis
Keena Turner
Keith Farnhorst

Guy McIntrye
Jeff Stover
Dwight Hicks
Pierce Holt
Fred Quillan
Carlton Williamson
Steve Wallace
Harris Barton
Dwaine Board

Bubba Paris

Mike Wilson
Rikie Ellison
Jim Reynolds
Dan Buntz
John Frank

How about Jim Stuckey? Sometimes "The Catch" gets portrayed as if that play ended that game. Far from it. The Cowboys were driving near midfield with plenty time left (they only needed a field-goal). It was Stuckey who recovered the ball after Danny White was sacked. He didn't make a whole lot of plays as a Niner but that one was pretty big. Earl Cooper (Sports Illustrated Cover) also had a nice game against the Bengals in the Super Bowl that year.

Carl Monroe is another one who came up big in a big game with that great touchdown grab against the Dolphins.

[ Edited by BHulman on Aug 1, 2010 at 19:18:11 ]

Didn't Lenvil Elliot have a few key runs on the drive that led to the catch? I have never seen that drive repeated on television, and my memory of the events 30 years ago aren't perfect. During the dynasty years if the 49ers struggled in big games I would start gulping whiskey to calm my nerves, sometimes the next day I could only recall whether we won or lost.

Originally posted by DaveWilcox:

Originally posted by bret:
This wasn't quite from the glory years, but the Glen Coffee thread has a replay of the Garrison Hearst 96-yd overtime run against the Jets. If you look closely you'll see Dave Fiore get a good block 30 yards down field that seems to take him out of the play, but then at the end when the linebacker is closing and looks like might catch Hearst, someone gets just enough to make the tackle attempt too little, too late. Who made that block? Dave Fiore again! He was completely out of the play. But through sheer hustle and desire, he got back into it and made the play that allowed Hearst to score!

He only started for 3 years and he wasn't the most talented guy, but that play typified why he was a Niner I appreciated!

None of these guys played on the dynasty teams.. They were good though, especially G.

I admitted as much in my opening sentence, but the point is, Dave Fiore was a Bill Walsh special! As I pointed out earlier the true dynasty ended, not with the Steve Young injury, but with the ascension of Carmen Policy (despite the fact that the wins continued for a few years.

The thing about Fiore was that he was one of those unknown talents who went undrafted but who Walsh spotted. He was instrumental in the brief return to glory of the Mariucci years before Walsh left again and Donohue really screwed things up!

I guess we could debate what were the biggest contributing factors to bringing down the dynasty. The 1999 Steve Young injury started the free fall. 1999 was the last year McKittrick coached, and the next year the Yorks took over. I thought the salary cap would have a major impact but the dynasty did survive 4 years into the salary cap era. The team started to rebound with the emergence of Jeff Garcia, but then they fired Mooch. When Mooch was fired I thought they must have had a big name waiting in the wings, when Erickson was announced I wanted to shoot myself.

[ Edited by BobS on Aug 2, 2010 at 13:09:43 ]

Originally posted by bret:
From me a couple of players from the first Super Bowl really deserve mention: First is Hacksaw Reynolds. I think he only played one or two years, but he was instrumental in helping instill the kind of discipline and savvy the defense needed. He made the players around him better and he taught those young players the value of study and preparation. Bill Walsh credited him for playing a big role, but fans rarely comment on him.

For the other you have to go back a couple of years. Walsh inherited a horrible team with no high draft picks (thanks to the OJ Simpson trade). His first year he shuffled players in and out so much you would have thought the Niner complex was a bus stop! Throughout the season it was common for 3 or 4 players to be cut every week and for new players to be picked up off the waiver wire. Most of them were gone too in a few weeks, but late in the year you saw the method to Walsh's madness: one of those waiver wire guys took the field and even any casual fan could see the difference. This guy simply had a presence. He was always around the ball and he made plays! But by the end of the decade he'd been replaced by one the Niners' greatest legends and so he tends to be forgotten. But Dwight Hicks really deserves some credit for all he brought to the birth of the dynasty!

Excellent poet. Totally agree. Personally I think that its a farce that none of our O-Line have even seemed to garner any sort of HOF consideration. We essentially had the top O in football for at least 15 years and nobody in the national media ever gives it serious consideration. I wonder if its because of the leg whipping allegations? Anyway my vote would be Harris Barton, an absolute star at guard and tackle. Even got some love from SI when Dr Z named him in his 90s Team of the Decade.

Originally posted by BobS:
I guess we could debate what were the biggest contributing factors to bringing down the dynasty. The 1999 Steve Young injury started the free fall. 1999 was the last year McKittrick coached, and the next year the Yorks took over. I thought the salary cap would have a major impact but the dynasty did survive 4 years into the salary cap era.

Alot of those deals that Policy did were backloaded so the effects were not really felt until the early part of this decade. By the end of 2002 it had hit the fan. There was a couple years when more money was being paid (and counting against the cap) to guys no longer on the roster than the guys who were playing.

Originally posted by BigRon:

Originally posted by eastie:

Originally posted by eastie:

Originally posted by BHulman:

Originally posted by eastie:

Originally posted by Chico:
Bob McKitrick
Jesse Sapulo
Keena Turner
Eric Wright
Freddie Solomon
Charles Haley
John Taylor
Don Griffin...so many, so many...my apologies to the other guys i missed!!!

Jeff Fuller
William Floyd
Russ Francis
Keena Turner
Keith Farnhorst

Guy McIntrye
Jeff Stover
Dwight Hicks
Pierce Holt
Fred Quillan
Carlton Williamson
Steve Wallace
Harris Barton
Dwaine Board

Bubba Paris

Mike Wilson
Rikie Ellison
Jim Reynolds
Dan Buntz
John Frank

No one has mentioned him yet. Without this underappreciated, mostly overlooked and Highly unregarded rb we would not have been in the position we were in 1981. Lenvil Elliot

Not much of a broadcaster, but a hell of a center Randy Cross. I liked Mike Sherrard too although he didn't help us win any Super Bowls...and he cost the Cowgirls a first rounder and didn't produce for them after getting hurt.

Originally posted by 4DNinersSon:

Originally posted by BigRon:

Originally posted by eastie:

Originally posted by eastie:

Originally posted by BHulman:

Originally posted by eastie:

Originally posted by Chico:
Bob McKitrick
Jesse Sapulo
Keena Turner
Eric Wright
Freddie Solomon
Charles Haley
John Taylor
Don Griffin...so many, so many...my apologies to the other guys i missed!!!

Jeff Fuller
William Floyd
Russ Francis
Keena Turner
Keith Farnhorst

Guy McIntrye
Jeff Stover
Dwight Hicks
Pierce Holt
Fred Quillan
Carlton Williamson
Steve Wallace
Harris Barton
Dwaine Board

Bubba Paris

Mike Wilson
Rikie Ellison
Jim Reynolds
Dan Buntz
John Frank

No one has mentioned him yet. Without this underappreciated, mostly overlooked and Highly unregarded rb we would not have been in the position we were in 1981. Lenvil Elliot

Not much of a broadcaster, but a hell of a center Randy Cross. I liked Mike Sherrard too although he didn't help us win any Super Bowls...and he cost the Cowgirls a first rounder and didn't produce for them after getting hurt.

Reason I didn't include Cross is because he got the most pub out of all the linemen in the 80s. I remember that for a time he was the virtual team spokesman.

Cross started as a center early in his career but during the 80s he played guard. Made the Pro Bowl six times at that position. So he got a lot of attention.

Originally posted by BobS:
Freddie Solomon had almost as much yardage yearly as Dwight Clark, a higher per catch average and was the deep threat that Clark wasn't, to me equally as important as Clark. Still for every shot of Freddie on old NFL films footage, you will see Clark 25 times. I think the catch made everyone that wasn't a 49er fan think Clark was the only big time receiver till #80 came along. I just thought of another, Carlton Williamson, even though he didn't have a high number of interceptions they usually came with the game on the line. I believe he made the Pro Bowl a few times even though his career was short. Amazing that the roster in the good ole days was so stocked with talent, players that would have been big stars on other teams, are only known by hardcore 49er fans.

Those rosters were deep with talent. I really believe you could have divided some of those rosters from the mid 80's and early 90's and still fielded two playoff caliber teams; coaches included.

Originally posted by nazniner:

Originally posted by BobS:
Freddie Solomon had almost as much yardage yearly as Dwight Clark, a higher per catch average and was the deep threat that Clark wasn't, to me equally as important as Clark. Still for every shot of Freddie on old NFL films footage, you will see Clark 25 times. I think the catch made everyone that wasn't a 49er fan think Clark was the only big time receiver till #80 came along. I just thought of another, Carlton Williamson, even though he didn't have a high number of interceptions they usually came with the game on the line. I believe he made the Pro Bowl a few times even though his career was short. Amazing that the roster in the good ole days was so stocked with talent, players that would have been big stars on other teams, are only known by hardcore 49er fans.

Those rosters were deep with talent. I really believe you could have divided some of those rosters from the mid 80's and early 90's and still fielded two playoff caliber teams; coaches included.

Agree, perfect example is Wesley Walls he is a back up Tight End goes to Carolina and makes the pro bowl 3 or 4 years in a row.

Additional players

Tim McDonald
Eric Davis – one the most underrated shut down CB’s Played opposite Deion Sander
Tim McKyer
Jack “hacksaw” Reynolds - showed Lott and the 81 defense how to study and play
Dana Stubblefield- Defensive MVP replaced Michael Carter another very underrated NT
Ray Wersching – the Stand with Bunz and his kicking won us our first SB
Merton Hanks
Rickey Watters- According to many stayed with 49ers sure HOF RB
Ken Norton Jr.

Originally posted by bret:

Originally posted by DaveWilcox:

Originally posted by bret:
This wasn't quite from the glory years, but the Glen Coffee thread has a replay of the Garrison Hearst 96-yd overtime run against the Jets. If you look closely you'll see Dave Fiore get a good block 30 yards down field that seems to take him out of the play, but then at the end when the linebacker is closing and looks like might catch Hearst, someone gets just enough to make the tackle attempt too little, too late. Who made that block? Dave Fiore again! He was completely out of the play. But through sheer hustle and desire, he got back into it and made the play that allowed Hearst to score!

He only started for 3 years and he wasn't the most talented guy, but that play typified why he was a Niner I appreciated!

None of these guys played on the dynasty teams.. They were good though, especially G.

I admitted as much in my opening sentence, but the point is, Dave Fiore was a Bill Walsh special! As I pointed out earlier the true dynasty ended, not with the Steve Young injury, but with the ascension of Carmen Policy (despite the fact that the wins continued for a few years.

The thing about Fiore was that he was one of those unknown talents who went undrafted but who Walsh spotted. He was instrumental in the brief return to glory of the Mariucci years before Walsh left again and Donohue really screwed things up!

Fiore was a tough hombre, suffered a couple nasty injuries if I recall... T-Don was just bad for business. I can't believe Bill Walsh recommended him for the job.

T-Don was the NFL's one and only telecommuting GM, what a tool.