1999 Season In Review:

The Evil Empire Falls

January 27, 2000 (NHS) -- Leave it to notorious 49er-smoocher Al Michaels to sum up the 49er Problem in the third week of the 1999 season.

The Niners, pitted against a worthless Arizona team on Monday Night Football, had struggled through their first three games, and Michaels took to calling the team the NFL's version of the "Roman Empire" -- not for the obvious connections of corruption and lack of morality -- but as a slap in the face to the few pundits who actually had the gall to predict the team's imminent collapse after such a long string of gaudy records. Well, as luck would have it, the Niners scraped out another win, which was iced when convict/running back Lawrence Phillips busted free for a long run to put San Francisco up by two scores.

Obviously, in Michaels' eyes, the Niners were far from dead. "We come here not to bury the Roman Empire," he gushed after Phillips' run, "but to praise it!" And the Phillips signing, it appeared to Niner apologists, was beginning to pan out as just another stroke of genius by Bill Walsh.

Thankfully for the Bandwagon, Michaels was able to goop as much praise on the Niners as he could for the rest of the broadcast, because after that, the Empire did indeed fall -- and fell hard.

Looking back on the disaster that was the 1999 season for the 49ers, it should have been easy to see the signs of impending collapse -- and indeed, close to a year ago, the NHS described what became readily apparent throughout the campaign: that the 49ers had average talent, at best, and no depth whatsoever (see The Piper Still Waits). However, as usual, most of the media saw it differently, and if you read the preseason papers or listened to the talk shows, you probably thought that the Niners would be gearing up for a Super Bowl run.

Jacksonville seemed to dispel that notion on Opening Day, crushing the Niners out of existence and exposing each and every one of their flaws for all the world to see. However, owing to its standard cheesy nature, San Francisco was able to come back and scrape by the Saints (on a final drive aided by both the officials' and New Orleans' own blunders) before knocking off the overrated Cardinals. The week after that, the 49ers edged by the Titans in the Backup Bowl to move to 3-1, but even as the Bandwagon was blindly piling on and turning the steering wheel towards the Super Bowl in Atlanta, no one seemed to notice that all four wheels were coming off simultaneously.

The Bandwagon got a taste of reality soon enough.

The 49ers' worst nightmares came true when the Rams finally got their revenge in a crushing 42-20 romp that sent the Niners into a spiral. If nothing else, the eight losses in a row finally forced the Bandwagon -- or what was left at it -- to face the facts: the Niners had problems. The nature of the Bandwagon, though, means that it would naturally dismiss any problems with an easily-packaged excuse: the Steve Young injury. After all, it could be no accident that the Niners were a stellar 2-1 in games Young started and a dismal 2-11 when Young sat on the sidelines in civvies. A healthy Young would have put the Niners in the playoffs, no doubt, according to the Bandwagon.

Which, of course, may have been true, but for the following:

Young's QB rating at the time of his injury was 60.9, the second-worst of his career and 10 points lower than the rating Jeff Garcia compiled in his place;
Young turned 38 during the season, had suffered three concussions in the past three years, and the 49ers never had an adequate contingency plan for his almost-inevitable injury;
Young was 0-1 against winning teams and barely beat the lowly Saints in his only other full game as starter;
Throughout his career, 49ers backup QBs had posted a better win-loss percentage than Young, tending to show his value to the team and talent has been overrated; and
Even if Young had played to his previous levels, which was doubtful, it still wouldn't have masked the team's other deficiencies.

Indeed, the 49ers had more holes than Sonny Corleone's car at the toll booth. Anyone with any football sense at all could see the team was in trouble before the first kickoff, as the Niners had made a couple of desperation moves in signing both the aging and ineffective Charles Haley and former convict Lawrence Phillips to contracts. Those moves ended up being especially delicious for two reasons:

They completely flew in the face of the notion of the Niners signing only "character" players, as Haley had been especially critical of some of the Niners following his last stint with the team, while Phillips' character flaws are well documented not only on this site but on police blotters in Lincoln, Nebraska; and
Both moves failed horribly.

Phillips was booted from the team mid-season after he was accused of "conduct detrimental" to the rest of those hard-working, classy 49ers. Haley, meanwhile, put up a stellar campaign that included five total tackles and three sacks on the year. The only "impact" he had was on the salary cap, as he cost the team well over a million bucks and will help shackle the team in the next couple of years with his signing bonus.

Of course, if players weren't getting booted from the team, or disappearing in the middle of games, the team was unceremoniously slashing them from the roster. Merton Hanks, a fan favorite for years due his stupid "Chicken Dance" -- despite his relative mediocrity and pencil-neck -- took his walking papers right before the season. Later, when it became apparent that the Niner secondary couldn't shut down a pack of elderly, tired tree sloths, much less an NFL receiving corps, the San Francisco braintrust gave the axe to diminutive cornerback Mark McMillian, scapegoating him for the failures of the entire defensive backfield. Apparently, McMillian alone was the cause of the Niners giving up the most TD passes in the NFL. Funny, then, that the unit didn't get any better after he was cut.

In addition to having the worst DBs in the NFL, the Niners also struggled mightily on offense. Part of that can be blamed on the young, untested Jeff Garcia, who, after playing the game of his life against Tennessee, regressed into the CFL player that he is and could only guide the team to one single offensive touchdown in a five-game span. Garcia's incompetence forced the team to go with Steve Stenstrom, who was somehow even worse, before giving Garcia the reins to close out the season.

Part of the offense's troubles stemmed from the ineffective line, which allowed Steve Young to be beaten to a pulp before the concussion knocked him to the sidelines for the year. Considering that the cheesy 49er system is built on quick passes, the amount of pressure on the QB the line allows is an incredible statement of their lack of ability. Garcia spent a fair amount of time scrambling and eventually ending up on his back as well. The line run-blocked okay at times, but its complete mediocrity only served to magnify the lack of talent at the skill positions.

And, of course, the receivers contributed to the offense sputtering on a weekly basis. Aging and ineffective Jerry Rice slogged through another season, trying but failing to convince himself (and everyone else) that he is still an "elite" receiver. Terrell Owens was hurt for part of the season, but even when healthy, he had no impact at all. J.J. Stokes proved long ago that he'll never be an above-average player. None of the three could get deep downfield, so even if the Niners chose to throw deep -- which they almost never did -- the receivers were never open. That meant that San Francisco had to stick with its two-yards-and-let's-hope-for-some-RAC attack, and when teams knew it was coming, they shut it down entirely.

So the offense stunk, the defense sucked -- giving up the second-most points in the NFL -- and the special teams were nothing special. Wade Richey, who kicked 33% in college, obviously sold his soul to the devil and finally made some field goals. Unfortunately, his kickoff distance -- the Niners' proclaimed priority in a kicker -- suffered in the process. Punter Chad Stanley proved to be a chump, while the return game provided no spark. Throw all that into a pot, and you've got the makings of a 4-12 record, which is exactly how the Niners finished. The third-worst in the NFL. And one of those two teams actually worse was an expansion team coincidentally populated by ex-Niners.

Yes, it was a year in which Niner-haters everywhere finally got their due. After slogging through seasons of watching the 49ers play ridiculously easy schedules, cheesing out wins with the help of stupid opponents, referee huddles and fortunate bounces, and getting unearned home field advantage in the playoffs only to get knocked silly by more worthy teams, we finally got a season worth watching. Finally, defenses crept up and stopped the cheesy slant passes, tackled the receivers immediately after the catch to cut down on the RAC factor, and exploited the terrible 49er DBs with many a deep pass. If there was a better way to close out the '90s and start a new millennium, we'd like to see the script.

The great thing is, it only figures to get better for us. Sure, the Niners will have a high pick in the draft, but they are in such terrible cap shape that they won't be able to sign much help on the free-agent market. Their best players make too much money and are on the wrong side of 30. Their GM appears to be washed up at this point in his career, having made nothing but poor or questionable personnel decisions last year. Their beloved "best ever" stars are on the chopping block in what is already shaping up to be an ugly scene. And the fan base is dwindling as the "49er Faithful" show their true colors.

It's fitting, then, that the 1999 season ended with the Niners back on Monday Night Football, in what will probably be their last appearance in the spotlight game for a while. The game was ancillary at that point -- no one gave a rat's ass about the Falcons and Niners, both 4-11, cranking it out for fourth place in the horrendous NFC West. No, what was great was that the Niner futility was on display for all to see. Even the wistful Michaels, pontificating about how great the 49ers used to be, couldn't change with his words what was easily seen on the field -- the Niners are simply a bad football team.

Sorry, Al. Looks like you and the Bandwagon should have been burying the Roman Empire instead of praising it.

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