WHERE'S WALSH MAGIC?

Media Propaganda Can't Prevent Another Flubbed Draft

April 20, 1999 (NHS) -- It's time once again to look at our favorite folks -- the mainstream media -- and expose their pro-49er, "Walsh is a genius" propaganda.

When the 1999 NFL draft was approaching, the pro-49er media went into overdrive. ESPNet (a.k.a. "Pravda" to 49er-Haters) provided its usual slant with a seemingly innocent public opinion poll, asking its viewers to select the greatest draft of all-time. Out of the five choices readers were presented, two of the five were 49er drafts: the 49ers' 1981 draft and the 49ers' 1986 draft.

Next, Sports Illustrated's Mike Silver, who is most recognized as an appendage attached to the 49ers' collective derriere, opined, "Long before Jimmy Johnson ... Walsh and his front-office lieutenant, John McVay, turned draft day dealing, mixed with a healthy does of public deception, into an art form."

Finally, our friends at The Sporting News, not to be outdone, posted a list of the "Top 5 NFL Draft Picks" of all-time, and sitting there at #1, a.k.a. the best draft pick ever, was Joe Montana.

Yes, we can rip these fallacies easy. The 1981 draft? The overrated Ronnie Lott and a bunch of no-names that didn't last more than a year or two. Hardly "best ever" material. The 1986 draft? Charles Haley is a legitimate Hall-Of-Famer, but then there were a bunch of stereotypical 49er players that would not have started for any other team (see: Kevin Fagan) and had success simply because of the 49er system (see: Tom Rathman with the Raiders). But more important is the gall to list two of the five choices as 49er drafts.

As far as Walsh v. Jimmy Johnson, when it comes to amassing talent, Walsh can't hold a candle to Jimmy. Walsh is all about fitting players into a cheesy offensive system, whereas Jimmy has always based his system on talent, and used the draft to gather the most talent. Maybe if Silver pulled his head out of Walsh's ass he would see that. And are we the only ones that find something sickening about a member of the media gleefully touting the 49ers' little game of "public deception" to be "healthy" or an "art form"??

Finally, tabbing Joe Montana as "best pick ever" is off-the-scale ridiculous. As one of our avid readers pointed out (featured in our quote of the week), there were many, many better picks than Montana in the 3rd round. For example, Bart Starr in the 17th round (who only won more championships than Montana and was picked 14 rounds later), Deacon Jones in the 18th round, Johnny Unitas in the 9th round, and so on. But, hey, not as great as drafting a weak-armed quarterback in the 3rd round, according to The Sporting News!

As usual, there are two takes to this media propaganda. One is the ignorance is bliss theory, that the media is simply just full of nice, stupid people that lack the gray matter to know how foolish they look when touting the 49ers and Walsh. The other choice is that the sports media is actually smarter than they look, and in fact they have an agenda to mislead the public into overrating the 49ers. It's not our job to tell you which is true, just our job to present the facts.

If you're looking for support for the latter theory, notice that out of all these sources, not one piece read flat-out, "We believe that Walsh (or the 49ers) is the best ever." No, that's simply implied. And therein lies the insidiousness of the media: they lack the balls to come out and say what they really think. Instead they slip it in indirectly, under their breaths, knowing that people will then subconsciously process it, leading to a desired cumulative effect of molding public thought into believing the lie that the 49ers and Walsh are somehow better than everyone else. If you accept this is the case, the media's cowardice is appalling.

Regardless of whether the media is honest or not, the total sum of their efforts leading into the 1999 NFL draft was two givens and a conclusion: (1) Walsh was back in charge of the 49ers draft, and (2) Walsh is the best ever; ergo, the 49ers on this draft day would pull some exciting deal that would be hailed as a genius maneuver only He could Create. In short, in the week leading up to the NFL draft, we all were prepared for Walsh's "usual magic".

So after all this hype, did Walsh and the 49ers do anything special? Out of the ordinary? Magical? NO! Perhaps they found some value in the players they got, but fact is that Walsh did not live up to his "best ever" billing. So where's the outrage? Where's all the media articles questioning why this God, Bill Walsh, was a complete zero on draft day?

For the most part, the 49ers and Walsh failed to get taken to task for their ineptitude. ESPNet briefly remarked on Walsh's lack of performance, yet still gave the draft a magical "C+". But maybe we shouldn't complain. Remember, when the 49ers drafted J.J. Stokes -- a third receiver so overrated that recently no NFL team bothered to sign him, so he wriggled back to the 49ers on his belly -- they received an "A". At least there's a little progress.

While the media continues to fixate on only the successes of Walsh and the 49ers and worship them, the bottom line is they have had a couple good drafts that luckily worked out and a long history of pathetic drafts. It's yet another reason why you don't judge a book by just one chapter -- or a football franchise by just its most recent success.

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