Two magic 49ers seasons - 1981 and 2011. Many observers see the parallels between the current season and 1981, the year the Niners won their first Super Bowl - both teams coming out of nowhere and surging into the playoffs.
Who better to put the 49ers, then and now, into context than Ira Miller, the primary chronicler of the Niners in the '80s and '90s? Miller spoke to the Press Democrat this week about 49er magic past and present.
Q: At what point did you know the 1981 49ers were a playoff team?
Miller: It was one of those things that sort of built. They won a lot of close games. In a space of five weeks, they won four games by two points or three points. But they beat the Rams 20-17, and I remember the headline in The Chronicle said, &‘This is Serious!' with an exclamation mark.
They started out by losing two of the first three games, and Bill Walsh was later quoted as saying that I was preparing a series on his firing. They beat the (crap) out of the Cowboys. And that was when it looked like something was different.
Q: At what point did you think they could go to the Super Bowl?
Miller: Probably when the playoffs started. It had rained like hell in the Bay Area, so they went down to Anaheim to practice (for Dallas), and I remember sitting around the hotel one night and (assistant coach) Sam Wyche came by and we started talking. The coaches were supremely confident and I specifically remember Sam was talking about the 49ers were just too fast for the Cowboys. They thought the Cowboys were an older, slower team, and the coaches just thought their speed would kill them. And in a sense it did.
Q: The general thinking is 1981 was an offense-oriented team as opposed to this season's team which depends on defense. Do you agree?
Miller: Yeah, that's what people think. Like, &‘Oh! It was Joe Montana!' He was good - he was on the cover of Time and Newsweek, but that team finished second in the league in defense and 13th in offense.
Q: Does the focus of the 2011 team seem similar or different from the focus of the 1981 team?
Miller: I think the idea is the same. You win by keeping the other guys from scoring.
Q: What did the addition of Fred Dean and Hacksaw Reynolds mean for that team?
Miller: Hacksaw taught them how to play, how to prepare. The great Hacksaw story Ronnie Lott tells - Hacksaw had all these pencils. He put on his uniform in the hotel. Hacksaw was a character. Ronnie showed up for a meeting and he didn't have anything to write with and he asked Hacksaw if he could have one of his pencils. Hacksaw said no. Ronnie learned to be better prepared.
And Fred Dean, when he arrived, he gave them that pass rush that Walsh always thought was so important - the pass rush in the fourth quarter. And the rookie DBs were out of this world, of course.
Q: When did you realize Bill Walsh was great?
Miller: Probably one of the times he told us. No, I'm kidding. But they had fourth-quarter comeback victories that year against the Steelers on the road, against the Rams on the road and against New Orleans on the road. So that was pretty good. And then they also had that comeback victory in the championship game.
Q: What was it like to cover that '81 team?
Miller: It was fun. It was new. It had never happened. The town was excited. And the guys were good to deal with.
Q: What was Montana like that season?
Miller: He was a kid. I remember during the playoffs, they were still in Redwood City, and it's getting dark at 5 o'clock because it's late December and January, and he would stand there on that lawn until 6:30 in the dark talking to anybody that wanted to talk to him.
Q: At what point did you realize that Montana was great?
Miller: I think it just sort of built. He seemed to be able to make plays. But it wasn't, "Joe Montana!" - one word with an exclamation point - at that point.
Q: Alex Smith's regular season was comparable statistically to Joe Montana's 1981 season. What do you think of that?
Miller: You can make almost any case you want out of statistics. Smith has Frank Gore. Joe didn't have Frank Gore. Smith has the league's No. 1 defense, although Joe had the No. 2 defense, surprisingly. We know about Joe Montana. I don't want to say this year's an aberration (for Smith) and he's going to revert, but this may be his career highlight.
Q: Which team is better? '81 or '11?
Miller: I would say the '81 team was probably better relative to its competition, which is the only way I can judge - it's a whole different era. This team could prove me wrong on that. Walsh built something that was lasting. Years after he was out of the organization, they were still doing his thing.
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