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49ers WR
Jerry Rice
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With the demise of the 49ers, who have plunged from near the top of the NFL to
perilously close to the bottom, the last dynasty team has succumbed to the
parity-producing rules of the NFL.
The 49ers had a very long run, an NFL-record 16 straight seasons with at least 10 wins
— and at least 10 wins in 17 of San Francisco’s last 18 seasons — 10
appearances in NFC championship games and five Super Bowl wins. Other teams had more
success in a shorter period — the Steelers won four Super Bowls in six years, the
Cowboys three Super Bowls in four years — but the only team to have a comparable
lengthy run was the Cowboys of 1966-85 with 20 straight winning seasons, though not as
many consecutive 10-win seasons as the 49ers.
In this decade, the Broncos have won the last two Super Bowls, and the Packers appeared
in two straight, winning the first before losing to the Broncos in the second. The Broncos
don’t appear to be in a position to get back to the ultimate game this season, and it
will be an uphill climb for the Packers.
The Broncos and Packers are good models of what’s likely to happen in the near
future, because the new rules make it almost impossible to keep a team together long
enough to have an extended period of success.
The NFL has had parity as its goal almost since its inception, because the
league’s pioneers understood the importance of balanced competition. The draft, for
instance, was endorsed by George Halas, though Papa Bear could have built even stronger
teams without it because the Bears were the most attractive team to players coming out of
college.
All the revenue-sharing, from television — the most important — to gate
receipts, has been done with the idea of leveling the playing field so teams from smaller
cities had a reasonable chance to compete. Green Bay is often cited as an example because
it is so much smaller than any major-league city in any sport, but a better comparison
would be cities such as Buffalo and Pittsburgh. In major-league baseball, the Pirates are
constantly struggling, and Buffalo is considered too small a market to have a team, but
both franchises do well in the NFL.
The draft is a great attention-getter for the NFL, but its actual value in equalizing
competition has been relatively minimal. It gives the worst teams a chance to get a great
player, and sometimes they do — Peyton Manning is the shining example right now
— but often the teams blow the opportunity by getting a player who is either little
more than average or an outright bust. Hello, Ryan Leaf.
But the combination of free agency and the salary cap has done wonders to bring down
the top dogs and give others a chance to rise up.
There is no better example than this season. The Super Bowl teams of last year, Atlanta
and Denver, have both been near the bottom of their respective conferences this year.
Meanwhile, it’s entirely possible that the Super Bowl teams this year may be
Indianapolis and St. Louis. The Colts are coming off back-to-back 3-13 seasons, and the
Rams have been bottom feeders throughout the decade — until this season.
Meanwhile, the erstwhile dynasty teams, the 49ers and Cowboys, have fallen on difficult
days.
The teams had different strategies to combat the salary cap. Dallas owner Jerry Jones
paid his stars very well, which meant a steady loss of good, though lesser, players.
Jones’ reasoning was that through the draft and abetted by the notorious trade of
Herschel Walker to the Vikings — which brought in a bushel-load of extra picks —
the Cowboys had accumulated an almost unparalled group of superstars, and he wanted to
take full advantage.
So the Cowboys have slowly declined from their peak. They’re still in contention
for a playoff spot, but only because the once-powerful NFC East is so mediocre.
When Carmen Policy was in charge of the 49ers, he reasoned that, as long as the 49ers
had Steve Young and Jerry Rice, they had a shot at going all the way. So he restructured
contracts with clauses that would have salary-cap implications in future years. Those
implications have hit the 49ers now, and they had to sacrifice several good players to get
under the cap this year. That left them so thin that when Young was knocked out by a
concussion, they had nothing left. Writers following them speculate that their Dec. 5 game
against the Bengals may decide the worst team (other than the expansion Browns) in the
league.
The parity-producing rules have had their downside. Certainly, free agency and the
player movement it has created have hurt the overall quality of the game. Football is the
ultimate team sport, and players have to play together for a period of time to get the
cohesion needed. It’s not like baseball, where players can be plugged in instantly,
even in the middle of a season, and produce.
The most obvious problem is on the offensive line. In the old days, offensive linemen
often played together for several years, so they knew exactly what to expect from each
other. Now, there’s constant uncertainty over blocking assignments, which is one
reason quarterbacks get blitzed so successfully. It’s also a reason for the
proliferating false-start penalties.
The deterioration of play has made games much more unpredictable. I can’t imagine
people betting on these games, though I know that millions do. I’m one of five
writers who pick games against the spread each week for The San Francisco Chronicle.
I’ve been second most of the year — but I’m well below .500.
But this deterioration is important only to writers, and perhaps coaches. Fans have
only one concern: whether their team won. I’ve never heard a fan of a winning team
complain that a game was poorly played.
So, it basically comes down to the old question: Is it better when there are dynasty
teams that people remember for a long time, or when fans can think that their team always
has a chance to get to the top, and sometimes very quickly?
The answer to that probably depends on whether you live in Indianapolis or San
Francisco.
Editor's note: Glenn Dickey is a columnist for The San Francisco Chronicle who has
covered pro football since 1967. He can be reached at dickey@sfgate.com |
