Historical Thread: Steve Young's last days

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?)

Brutal, I remember it like it was yesterday almost...the draft, pretty darn important..

Originally posted by Druckenmiller14:

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

I stand corrected. I remembered Walsh being rather cool on the subject of Carmazzi, but maybe that was later on after it became apparent that he wasn't developing.

Even the great Bill Walsh was dead wrong occasionally. He was the one who picked Terry Donahue after all.

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 Ooooooo 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.

Thank you!

Young CHOSE to quite playing, and was NOT forced to quite due to concussions. He specifically cited the fact that he knew we weren't playing for Super Bowls anymore and the injury made his exit easy.

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?)

Walsh' call on Tom Brady... I saw a special on it. They had a somewhat embarrassed Mooch try to explain why they went with Carmazzi. Basically Mooch said that there's no way to predict who has "it" and who doesn't. On paper and in terms of looking the part, Carmazzi was way better than the malnourished weakling that Brady was.

Even Walsh was wrong sometimes. It would have been all moot if they had gone with Plummer over Truckenmiller. I really think that Plummer would have flourished in SF. Instead he went to a trash Tards franchise and wasted away his best years there.

In his stead though....Walsh did get us Garcia, who was great in his own right. I still love Jeff Garcia.

Originally posted by Lifer:
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).

2000 was a down year too as early on in the season, Mooch couldn't decide on a QB. As a result, we got a QB controversy with Garcia/Mirer/Stenstrom. Garcia didn't help matters by commenting that Young had been less than helpful on the sidelines the season before.Mooch made him apologize to Steve for that. Late in the season though Garcia won the starting job though and the 49ers were one of the league's top offenses. The defense though...was old and terrible. Walsh used the 1999 and 2000 offseasons to draft the Niners a new young and very athletic defense. By the 2001 season, the Niners were ready to roll on both sides of the ball.

One of the best quick rebuild jobs I've ever seen. It's too bad that Walsh doesn't get much credit for that.

Originally posted by kray28:

Originally posted by Lifer:
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).

2000 was a down year too as early on in the season, Mooch couldn't decide on a QB. As a result, we got a QB controversy with Garcia/Mirer/Stenstrom. Garcia didn't help matters by commenting that Young had been less than helpful on the sidelines the season before.Mooch made him apologize to Steve for that. Late in the season though Garcia won the starting job though and the 49ers were one of the league's top offenses. The defense though...was old and terrible. Walsh used the 1999 and 2000 offseasons to draft the Niners a new young and very athletic defense. By the 2001 season, the Niners were ready to roll on both sides of the ball.

One of the best quick rebuild jobs I've ever seen. It's too bad that Walsh doesn't get much credit for that.

Yeah, 2000 was a struggle, but Garcia and the Offense were outstanding. Considereing that we'd just lost a HOF quarterback the year before, that's pretty amazing.

After Walsh restocked the roster and set the team up for future success, he handed the keys to Terry Donahue. Between Donahue and John York, they buggered it so bad that anything Walsh accomplished was soon erased and forgotten.