'Scarface' at the 'Stick

SANTA CLARA - As football players, the 49ers special teamers are very good dancers.

First, some background - setting the tone is an important concept in the NFL.

All teams want to do it, but there's no one way to get it done.

Past 49er playoff teams did it with their offense. If they won the coin flip they'd take the ball so their future Hall of Fame quarterback (Joe Montana or Steve Young) could engineer a touchdown drive and set the tone, which was "You cannot stop our offense."

That is not how the current Niners set the tone.

First of all, they never elect to receive an opening kickoff. If they win the coin flip, they choose to kick. They have arguably the best defense in football - let it set the tone, right?

But even that is not completely correct. The Niners actually set the tone before either team's offense or defense has taken the field.

Here's how they do it...

The special teams run out onto the field. The opposing team lines up casually for the kick return - the NFL equivalent of the opening tip in the NBA, a minor formality before the main event happens.

The Niners special teams do not line up casually. While kicker David Akers puts the ball on the tee, his teammates huddle behind him so the other team doesn't know who's going to come from where. Already they're creating havoc.

As Candlestick Park waits for the kickoff, a haunting piano loop starts blasting from the stadium speakers. It's just three notes played over and over again, and it sounds like the score in a movie when the camera slowly zooms in on a psycho killer's eyes.

Then the beat is accompanied by an extremely loud bass, and the Niners special teamers start rhythmically bouncing their shoulders and swaying and bobbing and weaving on the field.

The other team just waits on the other end of the field, stretching their hamstrings, cracking their knuckles.

And then the chorus starts. It's a chant: "Tony Montana, Tony Montana, Tony Montana, Tony Montana." All the Niners sing along as they bob and weave like they're at a night club. The whole stadium chants "Tony Montana, Tony Montana."

It's a popular song by a rapper named Future. It's about feeling like Tony Montana, Al Pacino's character in "Scarface." Tony Montana was a fictional, ruthless mobster, and that's who these Niners channel to set the tone for special-teams mayhem.

"I hear that &‘Tony Montana, Tony Montana,' and it makes me angry," running back Anthony Dixon said this week in the locker room. "It makes me feel like an animal. Seek and destroy. That's how it makes me feel.

"We go down there and we take it from them. That's what Tony Montana was doing in the movie. He was bossy. He ran around and got what he wanted. That's our mentality on special teams. We just make it fun. When you make it more fun, you play with more confidence and you do things that you normally don't do. You loosen up. Instead of standing still and building up nerves, you're getting them all out. That's what all of us are doing. We're maxing out."

Now that they're back in the NFC Championship game, this team is more Tony Montana than Joe Montana.

"I think Tony's attitude was a little bit ruder than Joe's," said Dixon. "Joe Montana - he was a killer himself. I grew up watching him. He definitely did his thing. But Tony Montana had a little more rudeness."

But linebacker Blake Costanzo doesn't see a difference.

"Joe Montana got the crowd on its feet all the time, got them cheering," Costanzo said. "I feel like Tony Montana does the same thing."

All together now, "Tony Montana, Tony Montana."

Grant Cohn is the author of

The Press Democrat's

Inside the 49ers blog. Read it at 49ers.pressdemocrat.com.