San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Upstart topples another NFL powerhouse
In the first 15 years of what became known as the Super Bowl era — the first two were called the AFL-NFL World Championship Game — a handful of teams emerged as perennial threats.
Between 1966 and ’80, Dallas, the Rams, Pittsburgh and Washington combined for 37 playoff appearances, 11 trips to the Super Bowl and six victories.
The 49ers during that same time? They followed three consecutive playoff appearances (1970-72) with losing records in seven of the next eight seasons.
In a five-week span in 1981, the narrative changed as the 49ers beat all four, the last of them being the Steelers in Three Rivers Stadium, 17-14, in Week 9 to improve to 7-2.
The Chronicle’s Ira Miller described the feat as “a parlay that could have earned a gambler a fortune.”
Miller went on to say that the defeat of Pittsburgh — which hadn’t been beaten at home by an NFC team since 1971 — earned its importance because “this was the day the 49ers showed their character as a team.”
No one displayed that more than quarterback Joe Montana, who played the entire game against Pittsburgh’s fabled “Steel Curtain” in pain and discomfort.
Montana had suffered badly bruised ribs against the Rams in Week 8, but neither he nor anyone on the team mentioned it during the ensuing week and he never was listed on an injury report. However, when he took the field in Pittsburgh, he wore a flak jacket under his jersey. “I hate to wear it,” he said. “It’s like, ‘Here’s a target, aim for it.’ ”
“I would write about how sick Joe Montana was before the game,” wide receiver Dwight Clark said to the media afterward. “His ribs were hurtin’ him, and his elbow’s hurtin’ him and ... he was pale. And he still went out there ... and brought us back when we needed” to come back.
Montana went 22-for-37 for 205 yards, with a touchdown and two interceptions, as his then-team record streak of 124 passes without a pick was snapped. The record ended in spectacular fashion as Mel Blount intercepted a seconddown pass on the 49ers’ first drive of the third quarter and returned it 50 yards for a touchdown.
The second interception came on the 49ers’ next drive — Jack Lambert returned it 31 yards, and on the next play Terry Bradshaw put the Steelers ahead with a 22-yard TD pass to Jim Smith.
“I didn’t have a good game,” Montana said. “It was just one of those days when the release doesn’t feel right. My mind was probably on my ribs. I had a crummy day.”
If Montana’s day was crummy, Bradshaw’s might be best described with words not fit for a family newspaper.
The four-time Super Bowl winner went 12-for-23 for 125 yards with three interceptions — by Dwight Hicks and firstyear players Eric Wright and Carlton Williamson. Wright, Williamson and fellow 1981 draft class member Ronnie Lott
also had fumble recoveries as the 49ers collected six turnovers.
“Their secondary is the best I’ve seen all year,” said Bradshaw, whose 43.1 QB rating would be his worst of the season. “I’m the one who looked like the rookie, not them.”
The last interception was Williamson’s, with less than 11 minutes to play. He returned it 28 yards to the Steelers’ 43yard-line, from where the 49ers began a nine-play drive that culminated with Walt Easley’s 1-yard run for the go-ahead TD with 5:23 to play.
“It’s very easy to let down on the road, but no one did,” Montana said. “So it has to show something about the team.”