DEFINING MEMORY
49ers-Cowboys history: 40 years ago ‘The Catch’ launched a dynasty
49ers receiver Dwight Clark hauls in a touchdown pass from Joe Montana with 51seconds left in the NFC Championship game against the Cowboys.
Touchdown catches in the waning moments of a high-stakes game are so plentiful in 49ers history they could fill a chapter, if not a book.
John Taylor in the end zone, Terrell Owens at the goal line, Vernon Davis against the Saints. Jauan Jennings added his name to the list Sunday — on the eve of the 40th anniversary of the greatest catch of them all.
Monday marked 40 years since Dwight Clark reached into heaven to snare Joe Montana’s pass in the back of the end zone at Candlestick Park to beat the Dallas Cowboys and launch the 49ers’ dynasty. An inside look at the greatest moment in 49ers history is available in a documentary on Peacock TV called “Joe Montana: Cool Under Pressure.” Episode 2 offers tremendous anecdotes from not only Montana and Clark but an up-and-coming coach named Bill Walsh.
Walsh not only rehashes “Sprint Right Option,” the game-winning play on “The Catch,” but he’s shown lambasting the Cowboys’ trash talk leading up to their 1981 NFC Championship.
“This (damn) Dallas team, they can’t keep their mouth shut, you know?” Walsh says in front of a whiteboard in a grainy video during a team meeting. “They always like to make press releases out of Dallas how they’re going to kick somebody’s ass, and they’re at it again.
“I’m sick of them. I hope you guys are feeling the same way I am.”
Montana sure did. And he recalled during the documentary how, after juking Ed “Too Tall” Jones to complete a midfield pass to Clark, the quarterback turned to Jones and said: “Respect that (expletive).”
Montana also famously eluded Jones and two other Cowboys in the final minute to launch a third-down, 6-yard touchdown
Former quarterback Joe Montana poses with a statue at Levi’s Stadium in 2018of late San Francisco 49er Dwight Clark making “The Catch.”
pass to Clark with 51 seconds left in their 28-27 win at Candlestick Park — with a young Tom Brady sitting with his mom in the upper deck cheering on his 49ers.
“You guys earned it and deserve it, because you’re the best team in football,” owner Eddie DeBartolo said in the joyous locker room, per the Montana documentary. “I’m so proud of you. I don’t think anything can top this. Anything in my life. And I love you all, and I thank you.”
Added Walsh: “Looking back on it, that was Camelot. That was Camelot. That was the greatest experience for everyone involved that they’re ever have in their life, to go through a season like that. That was the turning point. That was the origin of a dynasty.”
There was also footage of Clark’s locker-room interview, in which he broke down the iconic play.
“That was a play we worked on all year. It really hasn’t worked like it did today,” Clark said. “I was the secondary receiver. Freddie (Solomon) was supposed to get the ball. It became wide open. Joe made a great throw.”
Former 49er Dwight Clark poses for the cameras at the spot where he made “The Catch” at Candlestick Park in 2013.
The documentary then cuts away to show Walsh’s fascination with “Sprint Right Option.” Walsh is shown breaking down the play to his players. Montana notes how they not only scored with the play earlier that game against the Cowboys, but how Walsh had made them run the play repeatedly in practice at camp.
Clark, before passing away in 2018, said in the documentary of Montana’s throw: “My amazement with Joe is always that, in the frickin’ situation that sends you to the Super Bowl, he’s rolling right, Freddie slips and he’s covered, there’s three Cowboys in front of him, so he can’t run, has the calm to say, ‘I’ve got to get these guys up in the air.’ Pumps them, they jump, and he throws it in the exact spot it had to be. It was just a perfect pass, a magical moment from Joe Montana.”
Said Montana: “There was a big sigh of relief, because it was such an important game for us to get past. Because of the preparation that went into it, knowing what the results would be if we won, made it that much more special.
“It was great to beat the Cowboys but now we were going to the Super Bowl.”
The 49res went on to win the first of the franchise’s five Super Bowls. The last of them came after the 49ers beat the Cowboys in the 1994 NFC Championship game. That also was the last playoff game between the two teams.
Until Sunday.