SUPER JOE COOL!
Joe Montana made it look so easy, the thought of Super Bowl XXIV being his last trip to the big game never crossed anyone’s mind. Montana won his record third Super Bowl MVP award in the San Francisco 49ers’ 55-10 blowout of the Denver Broncos, the most lopsided final score in the history of the Super Bowl. And, as the saying goes, it was not as close as that ridiculous score indicated.
Montana completed 22 of 29 passes for 297 yards and a Super Bowl record five touchdowns with zero interceptions. The Broncos barely touched Montana all game. Denver was credited with one sack, but it was when Montana ran out of bounds at the line of scrimmage.
The Niners tied the Pittsburgh Steelers with four Super Bowl victories and became the first team to win backto-back Super Bowls with different head coaches as George Seifert took over for Bill Walsh, who retired after the Niners’ victory in Super Bowl XXIII. The Broncos lost in the Super Bowl for the third time in four seasons and f ourth overall, which tied them with the Minnesota Vikings for the most Super Bowl losses.
Montana became the third player to be named the Associated Press NFL MVP and win Super Bowl MVP in the same season, joining Bart Starr (1966) and Terry Bradshaw (1978).
The Niners scored touchdowns on six of their first eight possessions. The only thing that went wrong for the Niners was when Mike Cofer missed an extra point in the first quarter that kept Denver within 13-3. Montana actually threw incomplete on his first two passes. He set a Super Bowl record with 13 straight completions over the second and third quarters.
Jerry Rice caught seven passes for 148 yards and a Super Bowlrecord three receiving touchdowns. The Niner defense, already a powerful unit that had added two-time Super Bowlwinning linebacker Matt Millen before the season, held John Elway to 10-for-26 passing and 108 yards with two interceptions.
Montana’s Super-staggering career Super Bowl numbers: 83 of 122 (68%) for 1,142 yards and 11 touchdowns with no interceptions.
But the quest for a three-peat, along with Montana’s Niners career, were crushed by Leonard Marshall and the Giants the next year in the NFC Championship Game. Montana got close to the Super Bowl one last time in the 1993 season with the Chiefs, but a concussion KO’d Montana from the conference title game as the Bills completed their AFC four-peat.
As for Elway, he fought through the stigma of three Super stinkers for another eight mostly brilliant seasons until finally breaking through at the expense of the man who drew up the Niner rampage in Super Bowl XXIV, then-new San Fran offensive coordinator Mike Holmgren.