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Fall From Grace In a loss at home to the lowly Panthers, the once proud 49ers looked more than ever like a franchise in declineBy Michael Silver
The earth moved, roadways collapsed, flames filled the evening sky -- and the San Francisco 49ers calmly went about their business, impervious to the chaos. The October 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake rattled the Bay Area, yet the 49ers never skipped a beat, much less a day of practice. The team went 14-2 in that regular season, then outscored three playoff opponents by a combined 126-26 to take home its fourth Super Bowl crown of the decade. Throughout much of the '90s, while other NFL powers crashed and burned, the Niners remained a pillar of stability and strength. Remember them fondly. On Sunday, 10 years to the day after the Loma Prieta quake, the many cracks in the 49ers' foundation became painfully obvious to the 68,151 fans at 3Com Park. San Francisco's 31-29 loss to the talent-poor Carolina Panthers and their coach, George Seifert, the man who guided the Niners to their '89 and '94 Super Bowl triumphs, dropped the home team to 3-3 and served its proudest player a harsh helping of mortality. "People say we're not the team we used to be, and I agree with that," says wideout Jerry Rice. "But we've got players with a lot of pride, and if there's a way to rise to the occasion, we'll find it." Perhaps, but the first-class franchise that former coach Bill Walsh and former owner Eddie DeBartolo built is more likely headed for a fall. In the past three seasons the organization has endured a nasty DeBartolo family feud, a front-office overhaul, a coaching change and a rash of career-threatening injuries to star players. What may turn out to be the knockout blow came during a Sept. 27 road victory over the Arizona Cardinals, when quarterback Steve Young, after being hit by Cardinals cornerback Aeneas Williams and colliding with 49ers tackle Dave Fiore, slumped unconscious to the Sun Devil Stadium grass. Barring a stunning turn of events, that Monday-night nap will serve as the final snapshot of Young's spectacular 15-year career. Young, 38, has experienced postconcussion symptoms, and team officials expect him to retire soon. If he does not, says one 49ers executive, "we'll make the decision for him. If we put him back out there and he got hit in the head again, we couldn't live with ourselves." Young's isn't the only head that aches inside the Niners' castle. Consider coach Steve Mariucci, who, upon being hired to replace Seifert following the 1996 season, assumed he was sliding into the sweetest gig in sports. Sure, and running Pakistan is a plum job. Since Mariucci's arrival, every other key decision-maker on the team, including DeBartolo and his former friend and club president, Carmen Policy, has departed. Also, four franchise-caliber players have suffered serious injuries: Young, Rice, defensive tackle Bryant Young and halfback Garrison Hearst. The energetic, upbeat Mariucci has handled it all with aplomb. His record is 30-12, and before Sunday, San Francisco's only home defeat during his tenure had come against Green Bay in the 1997 NFC Championship Game. But when Young went down just before halftime against Arizona, Mariucci must have wished he were back in Berkeley, trying to coax a winning season out of Cal. "The locker room cleared out just before the third quarter started, and Steve and I were left alone in the training room," Mariucci recalled last Friday. "He was all revved up, saying, 'Put me in. I'm all right!' I looked him in the eye and said, 'Steve, I love you too much to put you back in.' Then he took a towel and pushed his face into it as he made this horrible groan." Mariucci stopped to collect himself. He was teary-eyed. "I remember when Carmen offered me the job," he continued. "He said, 'Steve, you're in for the ride of your life.' Boy, he wasn't kidding." If anyone can relate to the speed bumps in Mariucci's path it's Seifert, who ran up the highest winning percentage in league history after succeeding Walsh in 1989. Though he was nudged out of San Francisco seven years later, he remains a fan of both the Niners (his hometown team) and Mariucci. When asked on Friday to account for San Francisco's unprecedented staying power, the cerebral Seifert, who was an assistant to Walsh from '79 to '88, invoked an analogy offered by his wife, Linda, who compares the franchise to sourdough bread. "She suggests that they have the starter dough," the coach said. "The nucleus was there in the beginning -- Bill, Eddie, John McVay, Carmen, Joe Montana, Ronnie Lott -- and even though they've constantly mixed in new people, there have always been enough of the original leaders to see that the tradition is passed on." Just as Seifert inherited a mess when he took the Panthers' job last January, Walsh, who became the Niners' general manager the same month, and McVay, who returned as director of football operations, faced onerous cleanup chores as a result of the future-be-damned philosophy of the DeBartolo-Policy regime. The Niners were $28 million over the salary cap, and they had no '99 second-round draft pick thanks to the disastrous 1998 trade for washout offensive tackle Jamie Brown. There had been other dubious decisions, too, including the drafting of defensive end Israel Ifeanyi as the top pick in '96 and the first-round selection in '97 of quarterback Jim Druckenmiller. Both have since left. Walsh, who had been hired as a consultant by the Niners in '97 to help identify a successor to Young, had recommended drafting Jake Plummer, but he was overruled by Policy, and Plummer went to Arizona in the second round. Walsh's shrewdest acquisition this past off-season was mobile quarterback Jeff Garcia, a Canadian Football League standout who drew interest from virtually no other NFL team. Garcia completed just 22 of 45 passes against the Panthers, but he moved the offense consistently for the third consecutive week, and he'll get a long audition as the air-it-out apparent to Montana and Young. Even if Garcia rocks, the 49ers appear to be in trouble. They haven't drafted an offensive lineman in the first round since 1987, and line coach Bobb McKittrick, who has worked wonders for two decades, has been weakened by his battle with bile-duct cancer. San Francisco's defensive leader, strong safety Tim McDonald, has said he expects this to be his final season. The 37-year-old Rice could be on the way out too. Still attempting to regain his burst following reconstructive surgery on his left knee in '97 and a torn posterior cruciate ligament in his right knee last December, Rice says he'll return next year only if his health improves. "It's gotten to the point where I don't think my body can tolerate any more," he says. "I'm pushing it right now." Meanwhile, Hearst, an All-Pro halfback who broke his left ankle in the 49ers' playoff loss to the Atlanta Falcons last January, hopes to return in December, but the Niners' brass isn't counting on it. Hearst had surgery in July in an attempt to reverse a degenerative bone condition in the ankle that threatens to end his career. The 49ers may be even shakier upstairs than they are on the field. DeBartolo stepped away from the team in late 1997 after news broke that he was being investigated in a bribery scandal in Louisiana. He later pleaded guilty to a charge of failing to report a felony, paid a $1 million fine and was suspended by NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue. Last April, DeBartolo was sued for $94 million by the Edward J. DeBartolo Corp., the family company, which is now headed by Denise DeBartolo York, and he countersued. A resulting series of settlement conferences led to a still-unsigned agreement that calls for DeBartolo to cede full ownership of the team to his sister, who appointed her husband, John York, as vice president and overseer of the franchise's day-to-day operations. There have been rumblings of tension between John York and Walsh over the Niners' business practices, and reports of territorial friction between Walsh and Mariucci, but all three men insist they are comfortable working with each other. York has angered some Niners employees, notably by his decision to strip Lisa DeBartolo, Eddie's oldest daughter and Denise's goddaughter, of her title of vice president. Lisa, who runs the 49ers Foundation, learned she was no longer a vice president when the team released its 1999 media guide. York says Lisa is employed not by the team but by the 49ers Foundation, which is run by a separate board of directors. But York concedes that Lisa's paychecks are issued by the team. Last month several photos of Eddie DeBartolo were removed from the team's offices, including shots of him hoisting the Lombardi Trophy that were featured in a display case in the lobby. After the disappearance was reported by the San Jose Mercury News, a spokesperson for York said that the photos, which have since been returned, were being cleaned. York now claims that explanation was cooked up by two unnamed employees who, he says, took down the photos without his knowledge and were later reprimanded. "That stuff is so petty," York says. "When Denise heard about it, she was sick." In January, after noticing payments made by the team to retired Niners tight end Brent Jones, York reported the expenditures to the league as a possible salary-cap violation. The issue remains under NFL investigation, but Eddie DeBartolo's camp believes York's action was calculated to gain leverage in the battle for control of the team. York has publicly denied this, and he defends the suit brought against DeBartolo. "If your sister owed you $94 million, wouldn't you sue her?" he asked. "I own half the corporation, so half of that debt is owed to me," DeBartolo said on Sunday from his Montana vacation home. "I'd like to move on and not spend my energy fighting with people, especially through the media. I'm just so sick and tired of this venomous behavior. My parents would be rolling over in their graves." Eddie's second-oldest daughter, Tiffanie, a Los Angeles filmmaker and a member of the DeBartolo Corp. board of directors, says that York "has some serious issues with our family that he should be working out with a therapist, instead of while running a football team. Everything my uncle does is a calculated attempt to hurt my father." Counters York, "I'm sorry that she supports her father to the point where she's blind to the facts. We did not create the debt, we did not create Louisiana. Eddie can't find it in himself to accept responsibility for his actions." On Sunday the Niners lost their second straight game under Garcia. The secondary forced four turnovers and scored a pair of touchdowns, but Panthers quarterback Steve Beuerlein (23 completions in 36 attempts for 300 yards and four touchdowns) and his tall receivers exploited San Francisco's undersized cornerbacks. A few days before the game one Panthers coach had told his players that the Niners' cornerbacks were more vulnerable than those Carolina had burned in a 27-3 victory over the Cincinnati Bengals on Sept. 26. Ouch! And next up for San Francisco are Minnesota Vikings wideouts Cris Carter, Randy Moss and Jake Reed. If the 49ers fall to the 2-4 Vikings, it will mark the first time they've lost three straight in the same season since 1980. Think about that -- no losing streak to speak of in nearly two decades. "We'll keep fighting -- I promise you that," Mariucci said as he headed to the 3Com parking lot on Sunday. "This team will not mope or feel sorry for itself. We'll continue to battle and show our character." "I'm just so sick of this venomous behavior," says DeBartolo. "My parents would be rolling over in their graves." One 49ers executive says that if Young won't decide to retire, then "we'll make the decision for him." Issue date: October 25, 1999
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