49ers 28, Bengals 21

49ers Make Bye Week Exciting, Generate Facade of Heroics

October 23, 1996 (NHS) -- Given that the 49ers were playing the lowly Bengals following the Packers loss, it seemed pretty safe to assume that the 49ers would engage in the usual practice of running up the score against their usual pathetic opponent. In advance, the NHS considered foregoing a game review this week off and merely posting:

49ers record v. opponents with record under .500: 5-0
49ers record v. opponents with record over .500: 0-2

But the 49ers didn't live up to their 15 point spread. As such, the NHS looked on with bemused interest, figuring that there would be hell to pay from the irate fans and media for not beating up on such an impotent opponent. Instead, it seems that almost losing to lowly Cincinnati is the best thing the 49ers have done all season.

Check these headlines: "Niners Roar Back!", "Dash of agony ends in ecstasy", "Young's TD run seals game in lore". There was even a front page story-- not sports page, mind you, but the front page of the San Jose Mercury, discussing the great 49er win and Steve Young's heroics.

This is the same paper that noted, when the Raiders beat the Jets: "its only the Jets," and, "Cowboys pull out shaky 32-28 victory [over Falcons]." So "the Bay Area" media apparently has the mental capacity to know when a team is supposed to beat an inferior team, but it seems that media coverage of the 49ers has nothing to do with logic. The difference between the Bengals, Falcons, and Jets is one win, but they are treated conversely. The Cowboys comeback over a dirty team is "shaky", but the 49ers comeback over a dirty team is "roaring back" and the stuff of "lore."

Steve Young: false idol

Most of us in the real world are aware that a quarterback in a wheelchair could probably beat the Bengals, and yet, Steve Young has become a hero for 49er fans. This image of Young as a hero is misplaced due to one simple reason: a hero needs an opponent better than 1-6 to overcome.

To make our point clearer, let's try a hypothetical: Imagine if the old tale of David v. Goliath had turned out the other way. Goliath, injured by David's stone, still ended up killing little David. Would Goliath be seen as the hero for overcoming his injury and beating the tiny David? Of course not-- he was the great bully, he was supposed to win. But if "the Bay Area" press was around, the headlines would have read, "Goliath roars back!" and "Goliath a hero!" Hopefully you get the analogy: there should be no hero after Sunday's game. People should be wondering how the hell the supposedly great 49ers were in the position to lose to Cincinnati in the first place.

Just look at Cincinnati's moments of shame even while piling up a 21-0 lead: Cory Sawyer didn't know how to make a fair catch; they took so long to decide to go for field goal that they earned a delay of game penalty; a kickoff went out of bounds; they repeatedly killed themselves with penalties.

At the same time, the 49ers were engaging in follies of their own, highlighted by the play when Terry Kirby ran into Steve Young in the backfield, the multiple turnovers, and the horribly blatant hold by Dedrick Dodge during a punt.

But instead of the poor effort of the 49ers being focused on, the Bengals, notwithstanding all of their mistakes, were built up. Announcer Phil Simms called it the "best half of football in their season," and claimed "[the Bengals] aren't a mediocre team when they protect Blake." The roots of the media spin taking hold.

Bengals' prevent defense: prevents win

The announcers did a great job of lambasting David Shula & Co. for lapsing into the so-called "prevent" defense in the final minutes of the game. Nobody does that anymore, especially not against the so-called West Coast Offense.

The more amazing thing is that it seemed as if the Bengals had never practiced it before (probably since they never anticipated actually having a lead to protect). Against the prevent defense, Terrell Owens was able to get behind Ashley Ambrose for the tying score, begging the question: how can you drop 8 guys into coverage and have only 1 defender near a ball thrown 40 yards in the air? There should have been 2 or 3 defenders swarming the ball. When you allow yourself to get burnt deep in prevent defense, you deserve to lose-- that's why they are the Bengals. Is there any wonder that Shula got the ax?

Steve Young proves that pain is gain.

Does anyone else understand how beautifully the Steve Young injury played out for the 49ers? It played out in two ways:

When things were going badly for Steve Young, the injury was an excuse: "the Young of old would have been able to scramble away from that linebacker," and, going back to the Carolina game, "because of the injury, he's not the same Steve Young."
When things finally did go well for Young, the injury made him a hero: "he looked like the old Steve Young", and as the S.J. Mercury asserted, "Steve Young was Kerri Strug times 40."

Do you see the beauty now? Any way you slice it, it is a no-lose proposition for the 49ers. Just like the 49ers "won" last week against Green Bay, the 49ers again would not have lost even had Cinci held on. It would have been "Injuries allow Bengals win."

Also, are we the only ones that find something strange about how Steve Young runs full speed, play after play, and yet at the end of every run he starts limping around? The message is clear: "hey, world, look at me, I'm hurt!" Obviously it's Young's way to make sure he is put into the no-lose situation of having an injury, so if he did fail, the reaction would have been "oh, he's hurt." While the mainstream is perceiving Young as tough for gritting through his injury for the win, wouldn't true toughness be someone who plays injured but nobody notices? Instead, given the media's spin, Young's role as a hero teaches kids today an important lesson: what's the use of being injured if nobody notices? If you get injured, milk it for all it's worth.

Further, Steve Young had unequaled gall to throw a temper tantrum when George Seifert pulled him out of the game. Word to Steve Young: if you don't want to be pulled out of the game, quit acting like such a baby. When Young noticeably limps out of bounds after failing to get a first down, what does he expect to happen? Of course he's going to get yanked from the game.

But overall congratulations go to Steve Young. He's won back the hearts of the 49er fans who now toast to his greatness. Congratulations, Steve! And look what you've won! You've worked so hard for a bunch of people that voted to dump your sorry, aging ass 10 days ago, and rest assured they will stab you in the back the next chance they get.

"They can run now"

We at the NHS still chuckle when thinking back to after the Rams game, when Terry Kirby's 73 yards led the media to the magical conclusion that the 49ers had a legitimate rushing attack and the above quote. Funny how you don't hear that anymore. And what happened to Kirby, the running back on his way to greatness, the guy that made the 49er front office look like geniuses despite the Johnny Johnson fiasco?

William "Bar-Done" Floyd has replaced him as the next savior of the 49ers running game. It's so good to have Floyd's class back in the fold, hearing about how great he is and how great he played. Of course, Floyd is religious now, but maybe he missed that whole "Pride goeth before the fall" lecture in Sunday school.

Terrell Owens best ever

Yes, Terrell Owens has suddenly replaced J.J. Stokes as the next "best ever." This is despite the fact that his fumble led to a Bengals TD, in essence wiping out his later TD on the balance sheet. But the exciting aspect of the emergence of Owens is that Stokes is pretty much done in the minds of 49er fans. This is particularly amusing to 49er-Haters, given that when the 49ers traded up to get Stokes, they were graded an "A" in most draft reviews, even though Stokes was the only player they took in the first 4 rounds. He was supposedly that good, 49er fans hailed his greatness and his heir-apparent status as "the next Rice," and it was used as yet another example of the 49ers true genius. But now, Stokes gets that red and gold knife in his back and nobody remembers the misplaced hype.

Popson best ever

Ted Popson is living up to his NFL promo, entitled "Bay Area Earthquake", by piling up good numbers. Did the folks in the NFL advertising department know something we didn't when they made Popson a star long before anybody knew who he was? Seriously, it is still disgusting that a no-name like Popson, out of the hundreds of other players in the NFL, would be featured in an NFL promo. And, no, this promo doesn't just play for 49er games, any NFL game has the chance of being interrupted by this crap.

Besides being overrated, Popson is becoming a true 49er in other ways. For the second week in a row, he blatantly pushed off and wasn't flagged (this week he shoved Tovar in the back).

But one man's success means another man's demise. As Popson gathered in more receptions, Dick Enberg remarked: "those are Brent Jones type numbers." There are two ways to interpret that statement: (1) Brent Jones was great, and since Popson is matching his performance, he is great; or (2) Popson has little talent and yet is doing the same thing Jones used to do, so obviously Jones was overrated. You shouldn't need us to tell you the correct answer. Goodbye, Brent!

More Rice double standard

Anyone notice the beautiful catch by Tony McGee for the first Bengal TD? It was much better than the so-called great catch by Rice last week, but the announcers paid no real attention to it. Had it been Rice, you can guarantee there would have been moaning from the booth and at least one announcer reaching orgasm.

Another humorous aspect is that McGee was held en route to the pattern, but Dick Enberg's first impulse when seeing the flag was to wonder, "Did [McGee] push off while making the catch?" Again, had it been Rice, do you think Enberg would have had this initial reaction?

Enberg's first reaction is understandable, because despite the Packers game, the history of the 49ers getting the calls still mandates that when a team scores on the 49ers, there must be some sort of a penalty. Surprisingly, instead of the ref saying, "Penalty. Cincinnati isn't allowed to score on the great 49ers, so there must be something . . . " the defensive holding against the 49ers just added insult to injury.

Enberg also has an apparently uncontrollable speech impediment, whereas he has to add "the great" in front of the names of 49ers, such as "the great Jerry Rice," and "the great Steve Young."

Modest Rice

Says Jerry Rice: "I might be Superman."

NBC lived up (or down) to expectations in their first opportunity to broadcast the 49ers this season. Their pregame show featured a story on Jerry Rice, with the theme, of course, being that he is the greatest player ever.

The interview highlighted tough, hardball questions for Jerry such as "Were you always driven to be the best or did it just happen?"

Carmen Policy, Steve Young, and Ricky Watters all tell their side of the story about how they think Jerry is obviously the best ever and that he is super-human, so naturally the viewer should conclude that it is true given such unbiased expert opinions. Of course, Jerry himself takes this opportunity to showcase his class, comparing himself to Superman as quoted above.

Then the piece transitions to pictures of Rice working out. Once again, we see the same old regurgitated shots of Rice running sprints, lifting weights, etc. NBC must have thought after ESPN and FOX did the same thing, they deserved their shot at feeding people the propaganda that Rice works out more than any other player ever and is therefore the best ever.

Rice himself does his job at trying to create his image as the workout king. As he says, "a lot of hard work goes into it . . . it's not like I go out there weekly and make those incredible catches without paying the price."

Yes, Rice's arrogance is appalling, but even more appalling that people can be so ignorant as to swallow this crap. You would think that people would resent somebody that calls themselves "Superman" or says that they make "incredible catches." But no-- Rice is instead called classy, while others that engage in similar boasting are villainized.

But wait a minute. Rice makes up for all his boasting by later saying, "I'm a very modest person." So there you have it. If Jerry says he's modest, he can be as self-centered as he wants, but everyone will believe that he's modest. The outlandish gall of Rice to call himself "modest" after calling himself Superman is simply amazing. Maybe he and William Floyd get together and have arguments over who is the most modest.

Later, the subject of his wife's hospital stay is brought up. Rice is given another opportunity to be classy by saying how he puts family first. Of course, there's no mention of the fact that he left his wife's bedside to resume his great pre-season workouts, then returned only when the complications got more serious. Nor any utterance of the h-word (holdout). One San Francisco paper reported that Rice's preseason absence was in fact a holdout.

Here's the comments from the NBC gang following the piece:

Gumble: "there is no question he's the greatest wide receiver ever."
Collinsworth: "you can make the argument that he's the greatest football player." Then he talks about the stats (without exploring what's behind the stats, natch).
Ditka actually claims someone else is better- Walter Payton, then talks about Rice's leadership qualities.
Gibbs: Talks about how Rice hasn't missed a game, and such toughness is incredible considering all those slants over the middle and hits that Rice takes(!).

Yes, it was scripted to hit every area of the Rice Facade: he's the best ever, he's a leader, and he's tough. The mainstream's ignorance is getting old.

More 49er class

We forgot to mention last week that when Robert Brooks got injured, the 49ers were cheering on the sideline. Do you think the 49ers will rethink having "Winning With Class" as their official motto?

Houston-- big test!

Yes, the local press is already hyping Houston as a tough road test for the 49ers with little mention that Houston has compiled their winning record against patsy opponents in a fashion similar to the 49ers. But at least Houston has beaten a team over .500, a feat which the 49ers have yet to accomplish.

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