When did the "Super Bowl or bust" mentality end?

Originally posted by djfullshred:
"Superbowl or bust" was top down philosophy from Eddie Debartolo. When he was outed from the NFL, that philosophy left town too. Sure, the Yorks want a Superbowl. But wanting it is different than driving your organization to achieve it.

bingo bango

Yup, when the Yorks took over really was the start of the culture change.

And things just started adding up to accelerate it. I.E. (Like someone else posted, Steve Young getting knocked into retirement).

But with all that said, I think that there was still enough of a presence in the organization from the Debartolo regime and memories of the last superbowl that we all still thought Superbowl or Bust.

The nail in the coffin was definitely when Mooch was fired and Ericsson was hired.

After that, well... we all know what happened then.

I hope we go back to that superbowl or bust mentality though.

When the York's took over.

It ended when Yorks took over.

But for me, it actually just ended this year.

This is the first off season where I would have preferred a less risky strategy because for the first time ever I care more about a playoff appearance than I do a SB appearance.

8 years no playoffs is bad
8 years no playoffs in todays NFL parity is worst
8 years no playoffs in the NFC is straight terrible
8 years no playoffs in the NFC West is mind numbingly catasrophic

So yeah, Super Bowl or Bust is dead for me. I just want to beat the Cardinals, Rams and Seahawks out for once

When Eddie D. busted big time and lost the team.
When Steve Young retired.


As for the when the Playoffs or Bust mentality ended:

The day we drafted Alex Smith.

Originally posted by wysiwyg:
We had a 3 time Pro Bowl QB in Garcia from 2000-2002

1999 was tough

Gotta be the 2003, which coincided with the beginning of the York regime, firing Mooch, and hiring Donahue, who actually lived and worked in Los Angeles. And this guy:



2004 brought us quite possible the worst team in NFL history -- the missed field goal returned for a touch down, Cody Pickett, Dorsey and The Rat.

Looking at the roster http://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/sfo/2004_roster.htm the team should not have been that bad but it was

2004 begat the Suit and Alex

The Suit begat the Cross

I agree with this post. Everything flows from the TOP DOWN. That mentality started with Eddie because he was firing folks if we busted too many times in a row. When the Yorks took over, they had a "this is a business" mentality and the "Super Bowl or Bust" mantra died there and flowed down to the rest of the team.

It was a league wide conspiracy to bring the 9ers to their knees ever since the early 90's when the entire league finally came to the realization that to beat the 9ers, they were going to have to chicken hawk on our coaches and players. At the start we could deal with it but the league really hammered us with the goddamn salary cap. To me that wasn't just when we started to level off, but it was the start of the downward trajectory because we had so much already committed pre cap, and the league just didn't give a gee whiz.

Maybe it was earlier, I was too young to remember, but Holmgren and Gruds were the 1st to go and then Shanahan and whatever underlings he ganked from us. Ray Rhodes and Seifert (I still don't know why we pushed him out). Our defenses pretty much slowly got old and eroded away after those 2 left. Losing Bobb Mckittrick to cancer was as devastating a blow to the 9ers as anything I can remember though. Our offense truly never was the same without em.

Then Young got blasted, and the York's just failed to respond or adapt to any of the negative scenario's the club was faced with, except the brilliant move of kicking Moochie, aka: "the only guy trying to help" out of the bay lol! Basically they kicked the sh*t out of whatever was left and here we are; starting rebuild #2 or 3 or something.

Even the theft of Norv was a malicious 9er hater act of the 1st magnitude. That senseless act set us back like 5 years or something, and for what? The Chargers aren't any further ahead of where they were with Shotzy. C**ksuckers just wanted to kick us while we were still half way down.

We were done dirty by everyone and their dog (including God), and I for one will never forget it...SERENITY NOOOOW!!!

it took a break for a little over a decade but hopefully its back now

Dont care when it ended. It begins again in 2011! 2012 pending the CBA.