Historical Thread: Steve Young's last days

Originally posted by English:

Originally posted by Dr_Bill_Walsh:
1997: Bill Walsh (advisor) wanted us to get Jake Plummer....Policy & Dwight Clark instead choose Jim Druckenmiller

1999: Bill Walsh (now back as GM) signs Jeff Garcia from CFL; Steve Young's last year

2000: Had two chances to draft Tom Brady; pick Gio Carmazzi & Tim Rattay instead (Terry Donahue's call?)

Happy to blame TDon for everything from biblical times onwards. Fairly sure he wasn't with us in 2000 though.

IIRC, 2000/01 Donahue was still "apprentice" to BW until the latter finally relinquished the GM reins in '01-'02

As someone mentioned, the team failed to draft a viable successor to Steve Young. With Dwight Clark in charge, they drafted Jim Drukenmiller who was a complete a bust. Then under Bill Walsh, they drafted Gio Caramazzi (passing on a kid named Tom Brady along the way) who also flopped big time. Finally Walsh brought in Jeff Garcia from the Canadian league to be Young's backup. As it turned out, Young got hurt early in the season and Garcia ended up starting. He struggled early on and got benched, then came back late in the season and did really well over the last few games. The next year (2000) Garcia started and played strong; although it took a couple years for him to earn respect from the media. Eventually Garcia became a three time Pro Bowler.

So the 49ers really did manage to find a successor to Montana and Young, but it came down to Bill Walsh being able to find a diamond in the rough and the transition was a little rocky because Young got knocked out before Garcia was ready to play. But in the end, the team only had one real down year (1999).

The real troubles started when Terry Donahue took over and drove the whole organization into the ditch. He gutted the team in 2004 and tossed Garcia aside when he still had another 4-5 good years of football left.

Originally posted by Dr_Bill_Walsh:

Originally posted by English:

Originally posted by Dr_Bill_Walsh:
1997: Bill Walsh (advisor) wanted us to get Jake Plummer....Policy & Dwight Clark instead choose Jim Druckenmiller

1999: Bill Walsh (now back as GM) signs Jeff Garcia from CFL; Steve Young's last year

2000: Had two chances to draft Tom Brady; pick Gio Carmazzi & Tim Rattay instead (Terry Donahue's call?)

Happy to blame TDon for everything from biblical times onwards. Fairly sure he wasn't with us in 2000 though.

IIRC, 2000/01 Donahue was still "apprentice" to BW until the latter finally relinquished the GM reins in '01-'02

Donahue was on board as "apprentice GM" from 1999 to 2001. The first year that Donahue was completely in charge was 2002. As I recall, Walsh was very much in charge of the 2000 draft when we passed on Brady and instead picked Carmazzi and Rattay. That was the year that Walsh traded down from #3 and took Peterson and Plummer in the first round.

The Carmazzi pick is a real head scratcher. Walsh never seemed very enamored with him and Mooch didn't like him at all. Could it be a "Donahue pick" in the middle of a "Walsh draft?" That seems unlikely. Why would Walsh relinquish decision making control over his specialty (the QB position)?

We should have kept jeff garcia.... the year after Steve young Retired, Jeff Garcia put upa 4.2k Yard 30+TD 10 INT Year.

Following year a 3.5k another 30+ TD 10 int year.

after that he slowly regressed but i think thats because our team was just getting crappier and crappier, like steve young said "I would have kept being a niner but the organization was no longer interested in going to the superbowl ever year"

2003 was Jeff Garcia's last year with us, and then Came to us being the worst overall team in 04, leading to the 05 draft of alex smith being picked.... Think about it... Jeff shouldve stayed our QB. our organization F'ed everything up... and to people thinking we were still "paying" off contracts from the years prior.. if they werent on our team we WERE NOT paying them.. gotta get the facts straight.

I love garcia but we know he lacked a little mental toughness to deal with the whole being compared to young and montana thing. He also lacked the mental toughness to deal with owens, No one questioned how tough he was on the field but i really think alot of little things just wore him down and in the last year he was having no fun, zero. His interviews reflected that. I think the whole owens thing wore him out, I think he saw that we had no direction from the coach to the front office and he had a chance to bolt for a fresh start.I remember him offering to come back to the niners to do anything when nolan was hired but the last year was not fun for him, 7-9, bad year with owens, bad kicker and terrible head coach.

Originally posted by cciowa:
I love garcia but we know he lacked a little mental toughness to deal with the whole being compared to young and montana thing. He also lacked the mental toughness to deal with owens, No one questioned how tough he was on the field but i really think alot of little things just wore him down and in the last year he was having no fun, zero. His interviews reflected that. I think the whole owens thing wore him out, I think he saw that we had no direction from the coach to the front office and he had a chance to bolt for a fresh start.I remember him offering to come back to the niners to do anything when nolan was hired but the last year was not fun for him, 7-9, bad year with owens, bad kicker and terrible head coach.

exactly, in steve youngs last words in 1999 "I wouldve stayed a niner, but the organization was no longer interested in going to the superbowl every year so i retired". for Garcia to do what he did the following 4 years says something

Originally posted by SundayTicket:
exactly, in steve youngs last words in 1999 "I wouldve stayed a niner, but the organization was no longer interested in going to the superbowl every year so i retired". for Garcia to do what he did the following 4 years says something

i am glad for his own heath and for selfish reasons he never went to denver.the idea of seeing manning in orange is one thing but for young that is just unacceptable

get up Steve get up!



I'm still waiting for him to come back in.

thank you lawrence phillips and I hate mooch for giving that a*****e a big sloppy kiss when he scored a touchdown in a pre season game that year

Originally posted by 9erfan4life:
get up Steve get up!



I'm still waiting for him to come back in.

Whose got the caption, "YOU JUST GOT KNOCKED THE F*CK OUT!" lol poor steve

Originally posted by gavindirishmen:
We should have gotten Kurt Warner.

Or drafted Tom Brady in 1999. Or Plummer (who Walsh wanted but he was vetoed for Druckenmiller).

Originally posted by Jesu80ncleats:

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..........

I think Aneas Williams can suck a fat one.

Originally posted by Lifer:

The Carmazzi pick is a real head scratcher. Walsh never seemed very enamored with him and Mooch didn't like him at all. Could it be a "Donahue pick" in the middle of a "Walsh draft?" That seems unlikely. Why would Walsh relinquish decision making control over his specialty (the QB position)?

What are you talking about? Walsh loved him.

http://youtu.be/fx732_MmYiw?t=3m1s

Originally posted by cciowa:
thank you lawrence phillips and I hate mooch for giving that a*****e a big sloppy kiss when he scored a touchdown in a pre season game that year

Amen to all of that. If it is any consolation, Lawrence Phillips is probably still getting big sloppy kisses every day in prison.

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.

It was all of those reasons combined. He had multiple concussions. He was 38. He was still an elite QB, like you said, and probably could've carried the team on his shoulders, but the team was an aged team with salary cap issues. By then Steve didn't have anything to prove. He had a couple Super Bowl rings, one in which he led the team and was its MVP. He set a lot of records. Made his money. No reason to go back to the 49ers when they were on the verge of falling apart, and no reason to start anywhere new. He had nothing to prove anymore.

It's actually very similar to Peyton Manning's situation, to be honest. With both teams, the team fell apart when they lost their QBs. We had to go into rebuilding mode after Steve Young, and we're seeing this now with the Colts.