49ers 31, Panthers 28

'Tis the season of
receiving for 49ers

December 9, 1998 -- If there was a more perfect way for the 49ers to clinch a playoff berth and receive their precious 10th win of the season, we'd like to hear it. As it stands, Sunday's joke of a performance against the Carolina Panthers is a tidy summation of what the 49ers franchise has been all about for these past few years that they've been successful. The game was epitome of the 49er Problem: the 49ers do not earn anything, they simply receive gifts, and worse, they take credit for this charity as if they earned it. The Bandwagon is proud instead of what they should be: ashamed.

What other descriptor other than shame should fit after the cowardly manner in which the 49ers received a win over lowly Carolina (2-11)? The Panthers are one of the worst teams in the NFL and the 49ers were unable to beat them. You can't say the 49ers won; all you can say is that Carolina lost due to uncanny luck and mistakes. From the 49ers standpoint, the only thing more shameful would be using biased officiating against a bad team (oops, silly us, the 49ers already did that against Indy).

Not once, but twice the Panthers turned the ball over at the 49ers' goal line. Worse, Carolina kicker John Kasay missed a routine, would-be game-winning field goal at the end of regulation. The clincher was an unbelievable fumbled snap in overtime that handed the win to the 49ers. Whether you want to call it luck or chalk it up to the fact the Panthers are a 2-11 team, it's clear the 49ers did absolutely nothing to deserve a win.

Perhaps now you understand why we here at the NHS focus on the 49ers' easy schedule year in and year out, because if you play 2-11 teams on a regular basis, it doesn't matter if you play great, average, or crappy: you're virtually guaranteed a win thanks to the awful opponent. And that's why stats like the 49ers' little streak of at least 10 wins per season amounts to nothing more than worthless trivia, because at least half those wins are always meaningless.

This game is also the epitome of the luck that's been with the 49ers since 1981 when the weak-armed Joe Montana didn't have the strength to throw a ball out of the endzone as he intended. Instead the ball found Dwight Clark, who leaped a grand two inches to catch the gift. As if that wasn't enough, it was ultimately a Dallas fumble that allowed the 49ers on to their first Super Bowl. Instead of humbly admitting their luck and good fortune and being grateful, the 49ers, fans and media have arrogantly and belligerently taken credit for such events and made them the hallmark of their greatness.

That concept to a lesser degree is exactly what is applied to wins like Sunday against Carolina. Usually the recipients of charity show some gratitude, but instead Steve Young simply said afterwards that he felt "excited" and "proud". Once again, it's not the winning that causes people to hate the 49ers, it's the arrogance, ignorance, hypocrisy and double-standards that stems from the winning.

Young excuse quickly getting old

As expected, the absence of Bryant Young has become paramount in any discussion of the 49ers' struggles. Take the opening sentences of the Associated Press review of the game: "The San Francisco 49ers showed signs of missing Bryant Young on Sunday, and he let them know about it. Six days after losing their defensive leader for the season with a broken leg, the 49ers blew a 21-point lead..."

Yep, the very first thing out of the mouths of the press is about Young's injury. They didn't blow a 21-point lead because the Panthers simply started beating the pants off of them on both sides of the ball, no, that was all because 49ers lost Young six days ago. Also, you may be thinking, "I thought Tim McDonald was the leader of the defense?" or "I thought Ken Norton, Jr. was the leader of the defense?", but no, you're wrong. The correct answer is that the leader of the defense is whoever fits the media's purposes at that moment. If Bryant Young is hurt and the 49ers' defense struggles, then Young is the leader and the 49ers are great to persevere without him, and any bad performance is simply because Young was hurt.

We're not saying that the loss of Young doesn't hurt, all we're saying is that it would be nice if the media remembered that this defense -- at full strength, with Young -- was at one time ranked dead-last in the NFL. In other words, their defense was just about as bad as it could get, and while losing Young may cause them to move down, there's simply not much more room below. With or without Young, they weren't going to win anything meaningful with this defense.

The most hilarious part of the 49ers' pathetic showing against Carolina was that following Young's injury last week, all the teary-eyed 49ers talked about how Young was going to be their grand inspiration. Some went so far as dramatically dedicating the season to him (as if he had died or something). Imagine how flattered Young must feel now that his name has inspired playing like crap against a bad team.

Kirby: more unintended results

The best player on the field for the 49ers Sunday was Terry Kirby, once again fueling the 49er Problem. If you remember, back in March, Kirby didn't want to back up Garrison Hearst and the 49ers didn't want to pay his contract of over a million dollars, so Kirby asked for a trade. After no suitors came calling, the 49ers released him. For six months, no other team signed Kirby because of the obvious: he's an average to poor player. However, when it became clear to the 49ers that Chuck Levy was even worse, the 49ers resigned Kirby to slightly more than minimum wage.

Naturally, there was no bitterness on Kirby's part. Despite that the 49ers cut his sorry butt in the preseason, took approximately one million dollars away from the mouths of his family, and in essence told him, "We think you suck, get the hell out," Kirby probably was instead thinking when he resigned, "Gosh, what a classy team to cut me like that. No team treats their veterans better!" That's why he happily made the gutless decision to resign with the team he refused to play for just six months earlier. And now he's performing for them and the 49ers get the credit.

This is more fodder for several aspects of the 49er Problem: (1) the 49ers luck to reap the benefits of a player they didn't even want; (2) the ability of the 49ers system and atrocious opponent to make any chump look like "the best ever"; and (3) the continuing unexplained phenomenon of players having no self-pride by not only crawling back to the 49ers after being treated like dirt, but loving the franchise after being screwed over by it.

Millen/Stockton as bad as ever

Last time we saw these two Bay Area homers broadcast a national 49ers game, we were pleasantly surprised at their objectivity. Maybe they got too much hate mail from 49er fans or the network told them to quit it, but whatever the case, they are back to their old biased selves, stroking and overrating the 49ers beyond compare. We're talking about Matt Millen and Dick Stockton, of course, and whatever praise we gave them last time we take back because Sunday's inane commentary was enough to make an objective observer violently ill. While Stockton was his usual bad self (he termed Steve Young's 19 for 31 performance as "brilliant"), it's Millen that takes the cake.

Look, Matt, we know you have a personal love for Steve Young, but it must be written in some book of profession broadcasting etiquette somewhere that you should refrain from referring to him with a lovely-dovey pet name such as "the Youngster". As if that's not bad enough, Millen then gave his cement-headed opinion that he had no problem with Rice's comments regarding wanting the ball more. Also, he bestowed praise on Winnifred Tubbs in a particularly egregious manner on one play when Carolina quarterback Steve Beuerlein threw an errant pass that was dropped by a receiver: Millen launched into some rhetorical nonsense that Tubbs is a great pass-coverage linebacker because he has "pattern recognition" -- what that means, nobody knows, but it certainly didn't apply to Tubbs because as Millen was spewing, the replay was clearly showing all Tubbs did was stand there and watch the receiver drop the ball.

In an era where everyone is calling for less referee involvement in football, Millen argued for a pass interference call for Rice in the 4th quarter on a routine play. He then concluded his glorious afternoon by deducing that the sole reason the 49ers won the game was the 49ers' offensive line, the sole reason was "Steve Young's legs" and the sole reason was "warrior" Tim McDonald.

Confusing? Not if you understand what's going on in Millen's head: 49er Multiple Best-Ever Syndrome. He sincerely loves the 49ers and simply wants to say they are all the best ever at the same time, so it comes out incomprehensible. Once you understand that bias, you begin to understand the media component of the 49er Problem. Truly, with so much spunking going on, there should be a disclaimer that when Millen announces a 49er game, your television set needs to be equipped with windshield wipers.

Last gift yet to come?

While it is supposed to be the season for giving, as we've seen, the 49ers are practicing their traditional art of receiving. They've happily accepted the charity of their easy schedule down the stretch and are on their way to the playoffs. The question remains if there is one more gift in the bag: will Atlanta lose a game and hand the 49ers the division, allowing them to avoid the Packers in the first round of the playoffs? Will they once again win the NFC Worst after losing every meaningful game along the way? That we don't know, but we do know that if it happens, the 49ers will shamelessly take credit for it and be proud.

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