San Francisco had at least one new head coach every season from 1975 through 1978 — Dick Nolan, Monte Clark, Ken Meyer, Pete McCulley, and Fred O’Connor — and the results kept getting worse. Bill Walsh had been Cincinnati’s offensive coordinator, but left the team in 1975 when Paul Brown retired as head coach and named offensive line coach Bill “Tiger” Johnson as his replacement. This was a serious disappointment for Walsh, who had designed what later became the West Coast Offense in Cincinnati and thought he had the gig wrapped up.
Walsh spent 1976 as San Diego’s offensive coordinator, and 1977-78 as Stanford’s head coach. It wasn’t until Edward J. DeBartolo Jr. tagged Walsh to turn the NFL’s worst team around that Walsh finally got the chance he wanted — and obviously deserved. Vice President John McVay came on board in 1980, and though Walsh had started to make successful moves as the team’s general manager, it was really that duo who built the dynasty together.
H
success over years and even decades. The San Francisco 49ers of the 1980s and 1990s qualify for dynasty status by whatever gates you care to keep.
From 1981 through 1994, the 49ers played in five Super Bowls, winning all of them. They did so with two head coaches, two franchise quarterbacks, and several complete roster turnovers. Their 159 regular-season wins and .738 win percentage are by far the most and highest in that time period. No team played in more postseason games from ’81 through ’94 than the 49ers’ 26, and no team had more postseason victories than San Francisco’s 19.
That history is portrayed in a new docuseries, Rise of the 49ers, premiering February 1 on AMC and AMC+. The four episodes detail the ins and outs of the San Francisco 49ers’ dramatic and iconic run during the ’80s and early ’90s as well as the cultural context in which it took place — the celebrity status of star players like Joe Montana, Jerry Rice, and Steve Young; an inner circle that included a famous rock musician and photographer; and how the team’s backyard of Silicon Valley was on the rise thanks to the PC revolution.
Click through each milestone below to explore 10 notable moments that showcase how the San Francisco 49ers made NFL history.
ow do you define a sports dynasty? The easy way is to pin the word on franchises that win more than one championship in a short space of time. But to be a real dynasty, an organization must build title-winning
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Photography: TK Name
By Doug Farrar
How the San Francisco
changed NFL history
The 49ers hire Bill Walsh
Steve Young finally leads the 49ers to victory
JANUARY 29, 1995
1991
Joe Montana misses the entire season, and the quarterback controversy begins
Bill Walsh retires
49ers trade for Steve Young
APRIL 24, 1987
49ers draft Jerry Rice
APRIL 30, 1985
Bill Walsh beats his old mentor Paul Brown in Super Bowl XVI
JANUARY 24, 1982
The Catch
JANUARY 10, 1982
The 49ers select Ronnie Lott as the ultimate “consolation prize”
APRIL 28, 1981
Walsh selects Joe Montana in the third round of the draft
May 4, 1979
The 49ers hire Bill Walsh
January 9, 1979
In the 1970s and early 1980s, quarterbacks could get away with Pro Bowl seasons in which they completed less than 60 percent of their passes and threw as many interceptions as touchdowns. Walsh had a different idea, based on his Cincinnati playbooks where often, short passing plays replaced runs as drive-sustainers. He didn’t want a robot who could simply do what was designed, he needed someone who could take his playbook to the field at a post-graduate level. Once Walsh turned his attention to Notre Dame’s Joe Montana ahead of the 1979 draft, that was that. Walsh loved Montana’s accuracy and his ability to read defense, throw what he called a “complete inventory” of passes, and to throw on the move. Montana was a bit of a hidden gem, which is why the 49ers were able to select him with the 82nd pick in the third round.
Montana served as Steve DeBerg’s understudy in the 1979 season, took over as the starter halfway through the 1980 season, and was the established leader of the offense as the 1981 season began.
May 4, 1979
Walsh selects Joe Montana in the third round of the draft
JANUARY 22, 1989
For anything good to happen in 1981, Walsh knew that he needed a major upgrade in his secondary. His primary target with the eighth overall pick in the 1981 draft was UCLA safety Kenny Easley, thought by most to be the best at his position in the class. Unfortunately for Walsh, the team with the fourth overall pick had the same idea. Instead, Walsh “settled” for USC’s Ronnie Lott, which proved to be as transformative a pick as the Walsh-era 49ers ever made.
The 49ers also took two key cornerbacks: Missouri’s Eric Wright, and Pitt’s Carlton Williamson. Veteran safety Dwight Hicks rounded out a secondary that, in San Francisco’s 13-3 Super Bowl season, combined for 20 interceptions and four return touchdowns. San Francisco’s 1981 defense allowed just 16 touchdowns to 27 picks, and their 6.1 yards per attempt allowed was the NFL’s second-best. All of those defensive backs were important, but Lott set the tone for San Francisco’s defenses through the 1990 season with Pro Bowl and All-Pro nods at both cornerback and safety.
April 28, 1981
The 49ers select Ronnie Lott as the ultimate “consolation prize”
Dallas’ 59-14 trashing of the 49ers in Week 6 of the 1980 season was a serious reality check to Walsh’s team. San Francisco came back to beat Dallas 45-14 in Week 6 of the 1981 season, but they’d have to get past their rivals again in the NFC Championship game. Dallas seemed to have things in control early in the fourth quarter, up on the 49ers 27-21. Dallas punted to San Francisco on their next drive, and while the Cowboys ran a bunch of nickel and dime defenses (atypical at the time) to stop the 49ers from throwing the ball downfield, Walsh countered with a series of running plays that out-muscled those lighter defenses and got the ball down to the Dallas six-yard line with 58 seconds left in the game.
The play was “Brown Right Sprint Right Option,” and as Montana told me in 2021, nearly everything about the design of the play went wrong. But with Montana having to put a little air on the ball to clear Dallas defensive end Ed “Too Tall” Jones, receiver Dwight Clark was able to catch the ball with his fingertips in the back of the end zone.
January 10, 1982
The Catch
In the 49ers first Super Bowl, Walsh would face Brown’s Bengals, which gave a nice revenge kick to the proceedings. The two teams were evenly matched, and though the 49ers got out to a 20-0 first-half lead, the game was by no means over. Cincinnati outscored the 49ers 21-6 in the second half, and were it not for perhaps the most famous goal-line stand in pro football history, the results could have been different.
On a drive that started with 6:53 left in the third quarter, Cincinnati had first-and-10 at the San Francisco 14-yard line after a 49-yard completion from Ken Anderson to receiver Cris Collinsworth (yes, that Cris Collinsworth). Ultimately, Cincinnati had eight plays inside the San Francisco 20-yard line, and three at the San Francisco one-yard line, but when running back Pete Johnson went up the middle for no gain on fourth-and-goal from the one, the 49ers took over.
January 24, 1982
Bill Walsh beats his old mentor Paul Brown in Super Bowl XVI
In the 1984 season, there wasn’t really what you would consider a true WR1 on the roster. Walsh’s search for one ended when he saw Mississippi Valley State’s Jerry Rice’s highlights on TV. Rice set all-conference NCAA records for career receptions and touchdown receptions that stood for decades, and Dallas wanted to make Rice their first-round pick in the 1985 draft. The Cowboys had the 17th overall pick, and San Francisco had the 28th. So, Walsh traded his first-, second-, and third-round picks to New England for their first- and second-round picks, allowing the 49ers to leapfrog Dallas for Rice’s services with the 16th selection.
In his rookie season, Rice caught 49 passes on 98 targets for 927 yards and three touchdowns, as he struggled a bit with dropped passes and got the hang of Walsh’s offense. In 1986, he upped that to 86 catches on 152 targets for 1,570 yards and 15 touchdowns (all league highs). In 1987, his 22 receiving touchdowns in a 12-game shortened season due the NFL players strike remains one of the most remarkable single-season records we’ll ever see. And from then on, it was all about Rice becoming the best receiver — and perhaps best player — in football history.
April 30, 1985
The 49ers draft Jerry Rice
Montana suffered a back injury in Week 1 that was so severe, doctors advised him to retire. Instead, Montana returned in Week 10, but he threw just eight touchdown passes and nine interceptions, perhaps clueing Walsh into his team’s future if he didn’t reinforce things at the game’s most important position.
Walsh traded second- and fourth-round picks to Tampa Bay for quarterback Steve Young before the 1987 draft. Young had struggled through two awful seasons with Tampa Bay, but Walsh knew how gifted Young was. Though Montana had a great season in 1987 and a league-best passer rating of 102.1, Young also proved Walsh’s theory true when he completed 37 of 69 passes in the regular season for 570 yards, 10 touchdowns, no interceptions, and a passer rating of 120.8. Young wouldn’t become the 49ers’ full-time starter for several years, but until then, with even more mobility and arm strength than Montana had, Young kept proving that he deserved his own clear runway to excel.
April 24, 1987
The 49ers trade for Steve Young
In 1988, Walsh’s team bottomed out at 6-5 before rebounding with four wins in their last five games and a 10-6 overall record. After beating Minnesota and Chicago handily in the playoffs, the 49ers found themselves down 16-13 in the fourth quarter of Super Bowl XXIII to a familiar opponent: Cincinnati. It took a near-perfect 92-yard drive from Montana, which concluded with a 10-yard touchdown pass with 34 seconds left in the game, for the 49ers to pull it out by a 20-16 margin.
After the game, Walsh was asked by a reporter if the rumors were true, and this was to be his last game as the 49ers’ head coach. Walsh broke down crying. That last season had been particularly tough on Walsh, who was a ruthless perfectionist with his team and with himself. Walsh looked at football as an art form, and he couldn’t stand to see it desecrated with less-than-ideal results. Defensive coordinator George Seifert replaced Walsh for the 1989 season, which saw the 49ers knife through the rest of the league with a 14-2 regular-season record, and a 55-10 demolition of Denver in Super Bowl XXIV.
January 22, 1989
1991
Montana missed the entire 1991 season and most of the 1992 season with an elbow injury suffered in the 1991 preseason, and Young was also lost for a while in 1991 to a knee injury. With third-stringer Steve Bono at the helm, the 10-6 49ers failed to make the playoffs for the first time since the 1982 season.
Young was finally given charge of the offense in 1992. The NFL’s MVP that season, Young completed 268 of 402 passes for 3,465 yards, 25 touchdowns, seven interceptions, and a passer rating of 107.0, adding 537 rushing yards and four touchdowns on a career-high 76 carries. Montana was finally healthy enough to play in the 1992 regular-season finale against Detroit, and he played well, but Young started in the playoffs. Now, the 49ers had to make a decision: Young was not going to be a backup again, and Montana still had a lot of good football left. The two had worked together for years, but an internal rift began, and Montana ultimately requested his ticket out of the city he had basically defined in a football sense.
Joe Montana misses the entire season, and the quarterback controversy begins
Young was the league’s best regular-season quarterback in 1992 and 1993, but the postseasons were all about Dallas. Young was sub-par in two straight NFC Championship losses to Dallas, and became the guy who “couldn’t win the big one.” The frustration came to a head in Week 5 of the 1994 season against Philadelphia. George Seifert benched Young, who was getting destroyed by Philly’s pass rush, and Young verbally lambasted Seifert on the sideline. The 49ers lost that game 40-8, but outside of a regular-season finale against Minnesota, they didn’t lose another on the way to Super Bowl XXIX.
The Super Bowl win over San Diego was anticlimactic in a competitive sense, but it meant a lot to Young, who completed 24 of 36 passes for 325 yards, six touchdowns, no interceptions, and ran the ball five times for 49 yards — becoming the first player to lead his team in both passing and rushing in a Super Bowl. That win marked the end of the 49ers’ dynasty, but Young forged his own Hall of Fame career through the 1999 season.
January 29, 1995
Steve Young finally leads the 49ers to victory
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January 9, 1979
January 9, 1979
May 4, 1979
APRIL 28, 1981
JANUARY 10, 1982
JANUARY 24, 1982
APRIL 30, 1985
APRIL 24, 1987
JANUARY 22, 1989
JANUARY 29, 1995
1991
Art Director: Becky Joy; Senior Designer: Marissa Dickson
Bill Walsh retires
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