Historical Thread: Steve Young's last days

Just was curious how the 49er organization prepared for his successor say '96 or '97 and how they dealt with the abrupt end to his career.

The Young to Garcia transition I do not recall too well.

Also was wondering how many years more Young was expected to play assuming he was healthy?

Doesnt Steve Young have a Law Degree, he isnt dumb enough to joggle his brains in retardum for an extra few years in Pro Football.

I'll add, Young is a horrible NFL analyst, I still love Steve Young doe.

Originally posted by JTsBiggestFan:
Just was curious how the 49er organization prepared for his successor say '96 or '97 and how they dealt with the abrupt end to his career.

The Young to Garcia transition I do not recall too well.

Also was wondering how many years more Young was expected to play assuming he was healthy?

i do not think they had a plan for his departure and were caught with thier pants down. we saw that with the stensrom, garcia, mirer, stenstrom and back to garcia circus. we were not very forward thinking back then in the dying days of the dynasty plus our defense was old and slow

Originally posted by cciowa:
i do not think they had a plan for his departure and were caught with thier pants down. we saw that with the stensrom, garcia, mirer, stenstrom and back to garcia circus. we were not very forward thinking back then in the dying days of the dynasty plus our defense was old and slow

They did have a plan, it just wasn't a good one. They drafted a QB, Jim Druckenmiller, in the first round of 1997. Young retired in 1999. Then in 2000 they drafted two more QBs in Giovanni Carmazzi and Tim Rattay. They were just poor picks(although Rattay was a decent pick considering where they drafted him). As well, Bill Walsh brought in Jeff Garcia who turned into a very good player and led the team to several playoff births.

Young was 38 in 1999, his last season, so clearly they knew he was nearing the end espcially with the mounting concussions. It wasn't like they were expecting to get 5 more years out of him.

I think everyone thought Young had 2 years left. The only draft picks drafted at QB when Young was the starter were Grbac in 1993 and Druckenmiller in 1997.

Here's the deal. Young could have played longer, how many years did Young sit on the bench for us. He was relatively healthy. The reason why Young retired was that we started to have the salary cap issues. The Niners in their glory years worked out contracts that they were paying off many years later. Young even said, I would have continued to play but the Niner organization wasn't committed to going to the Super Bowl every year anymore so it was time to retire.

Originally posted by Oldschool9erfan:
Here's the deal. Young could have played longer, how many years did Young sit on the bench for us. He was relatively healthy. The reason why Young retired was that we started to have the salary cap issues. The Niners in their glory years worked out contracts that they were paying off many years later. Young even said, I would have continued to play but the Niner organization wasn't committed to going to the Super Bowl every year anymore so it was time to retire.

I think Aneas Williams would argue that Young was finished after the hit he put on him..........

The organization did attempt to develop some guys behind Young. Unfortunately, it worked out terribly. We drafted Elvis Grbac, but I think he left for Kansas City after the 1996 season. In 1997 I think Bill Walsh was pushing for us to draft Jake Plummer, but his counsel was ignored and we instead went with Jim Druckenmiller. Obviously the Druckenmiller pick did not work out and we were in a major mess in 1999 when Steve Young went down after that hit by Aeneas Williams. Garcia was not the guy that he was in 2000 and we had a bit of a carousel going the remainder of 1999. I still think about how things would've turned out had we drafted Plummer instead of Druckenmiller.

Originally posted by Oldschool9erfan:
Here's the deal. Young could have played longer, how many years did Young sit on the bench for us. He was relatively healthy. The reason why Young retired was that we started to have the salary cap issues. The Niners in their glory years worked out contracts that they were paying off many years later. Young even said, I would have continued to play but the Niner organization wasn't committed to going to the Super Bowl every year anymore so it was time to retire.

This.

And their was no succession plan. Garcia was pure luck and had getting him had nothing to do with the FO planning

Originally posted by LifelongNiner:

The organization did attempt to develop some guys behind Young. Unfortunately, it worked out terribly. We drafted Elvis Grbac, but I think he left for Kansas City after the 1996 season. In 1997 I think Bill Walsh was pushing for us to draft Jake Plummer, but his counsel was ignored and we instead went with Jim Druckenmiller. Obviously the Druckenmiller pick did not work out and we were in a major mess in 1999 when Steve Young went down after that hit by Aeneas Williams. Garcia was not the guy that he was in 2000 and we had a bit of a carousel going the remainder of 1999. I still think about how things would've turned out had we drafted Plummer instead of Druckenmiller.

Simply put, defense wins championships. Garcia, behind a top notch defense, would've been able to lead this team a lot farther. We were destroyed by a team with a good defense (Tampa). Our defense was middle of the pack while Garcia was around, ranking 13th and 14th, but worse in points allowed for most of his time here.

Originally posted by Druckenmiller14:
They did have a plan, it just wasn't a good one. They drafted a QB, Jim Druckenmiller, in the first round of 1997. Young retired in 1999. Then in 2000 they drafted two more QBs in Giovanni Carmazzi and Tim Rattay. They were just poor picks(although Rattay was a decent pick considering where they drafted him). As well, Bill Walsh brought in Jeff Garcia who turned into a very good player and led the team to several playoff births.

Young was 38 in 1999, his last season, so clearly they knew he was nearing the end espcially with the mounting concussions. It wasn't like they were expecting to get 5 more years out of him.

you are right,, sheesh i guess i blocked that out cuz it was so bad,, thank you for reminding me!! i guess it just seemed we never had a plan cuz things went so bad so fast!!

Originally posted by taney71:

Originally posted by Oldschool9erfan:
Here's the deal. Young could have played longer, how many years did Young sit on the bench for us. He was relatively healthy. The reason why Young retired was that we started to have the salary cap issues. The Niners in their glory years worked out contracts that they were paying off many years later. Young even said, I would have continued to play but the Niner organization wasn't committed to going to the Super Bowl every year anymore so it was time to retire.

This.

And their was no succession plan. Garcia was pure luck and had getting him had nothing to do with the FO planning

These are two really good posts. To sum it up, the long period of trying to hold the Dynasty together with quick fixes and salary cap fudges had caught up with the club and it collapsed under its own weight. Had Young been able to carry on, it wouldn't have mattered, the club was shot at that point and deep in salary cap hell. The team made a major strategic blunder in the mid-1990s. Having lost key coaching and player personnel to the expansion draft and free agency, they opted not to take the long view and rebuild on the fly. Instead, they started groping for silver bullet solutions that they hoped would get them over the hump one last time, but only succeeded in running the club into the ground. By the time Young was injured, the gig was up: the team was too old, too slow, much too expensive, and lacking in strategic direction.

Ever know a guy that has a car that he loves and refuses to part with? Eventually, he'll blame its demise on a single hard to find part, when in fact 450,000 miles on the odometer was the real cause of death.

Finally, since we're in free agent season, it always pays to think about how the Dynasty collapsed when considering huge FA contracts. It's so easy to think, "Ah, we can pay that contract off after we win the Super Bowl." But it's thinking like that that eventually brought down the Dynasty. Silver bullet fixes are the kiss of death.

Basically going into 1999 they already knew Druckenmiller was CRAP, I think he was cut by then, and they brought in Garcia and this guy:

We should have gotten Kurt Warner.