By Art Spander
For Maven Sports
MIAMI — Our major sporting events are both a blessing and a curse. We choose to remember the victories. We can’t forget the losses.
For Kyle Shanahan, one defeat in particular stands out. So does one play.
Copyright 2020, The Maven
49ers, Kyle Shanahan, Super Bowl LIV Email Article By Art Spander
For Maven Sports
MIAMI — This time Richard Sherman had the stage to himself, as if it ever seems to matter. He’s one of a kind, a man who can talk a great game and play an even greater one, who went from the tough streets of Compton to the campus of elite Stanford and then to star in pro football.
Copyright 2020, The Maven
49ers, Kobe Bryant, Richard Sherman, Super Bowl LIV Email Article By Art Spander
For Maven Sports
MIAMI — Jimmy Garoppolo understands, which in the game of football is no less a measure of his position than an ability to perform.
Copyright 2020 The Maven
49ers, Jimmy Garoppolo, Super Bowl LIV Email Article By Art Spander
MIAMI — Of course there was a question about the backpack. But by Deion Sanders.
Who better to exploit the silliness and salesmanship of the Super Bowl’s media function — relabled Opening Night — than a man who played in the game and now works for the NFL Network, Deion Sanders, old Prime Time himself?
Either Deion has been out of touch or the guys behind the telecast goaded him into asking Kyle Shanahan about the incident, but there was Deion standing next to Shanahan. Network types get individual access, which ordinary journalists do not.
So there is Sanders, who helped the 49ers win Super Bowl XXIX, right where No. LIV will be played Sunday — it’s now called Hard Rock Stadium, formerly Joe Robbie Stadium.
Let’s just say Deion was more impressive with a football in his hands than a microphone. But that doesn’t seem to matter.
Opening Night (sounds like an opera, not a media show) on Monday was at Marlins Park, the baseball stadium, appropriate perhaps because the one that was held three years ago, prior to Super Bowl LI, was at Minute Maid Park, where the Astros play home games.
Shanahan was offensive coordinator for the Atlanta Falcons, who would blow a big lead and lose to New England. But more significantly everyone knew he was about to be named the Niners' new coach.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one, but I came late, put down my backpack with my laptop and joined the group around Shanahan. Then, I picked up my backpack and went to write. Only, when someone tracked me down, it wasn’t my backpack, it was Shanahan’s.
Hey, it was dark and both packs were green. Both of us ended up with the proper backpacks. We’re three years on. But Shanahan has returned to a Super Bowl.
After Shanahan on Monday night tells Sanders there will be a different approach to this Super Bowl than the one three years ago, Deion casually mentions the backpack.
“I was pretty upset,” said Shanahan. “One minute I have it, the next minute it’s gone.” He wasn’t worried about the Patriots learning his game plan — “That was on an iPad and could be deleted” — but about the $15,000 in tickets he had acquired an hour earlier.
I never opened the pack. But I opened a wound. The story became huge. It’s still large. When half-jokingly a week ago, I asked Shanahan if for nostalgia’s sake he would bring the backpack to this Super Bowl, he said, “If I do, I’m going to keep it locked up to my arm so you can’t get it.”
Sanders, as if he had been on the moon, asked, “Wasn’t there an incident with a backpack? “
“Someone picked it up,” said the coach, cleverly using no names.
The issue now is not the backpack but quarterbacks and running backs. Can the Niners move the ball with the effectiveness they did against Green Bay in the NFC Championship game? San Francisco did it almost entirely on the ground.
Pack that up.
SANTA CLARA,Calif. — And so they are back, if not to the top of the mountain, then at least close enough, to once more be a part of the NFL elite, a team and a franchise that, through reputation and resilience, is nothing less than a champion.
The journey for the 49ers was at times confusing and at other times disappointing as they lost games and, a few years ago, seemingly lost their way.
But a young quarterback, a young coach and a relatively young general manager helped restore the greatness.
They remain one brick short of a load, another Super Bowl victory to go with the five wins that made them the team of the '80s. The opportunity for that was achieved Sunday in the NFC Championship game at Levi’s Stadium, where a boisterous crowd made it a home field in more than just name. The Niners, aggressive, obsessive, overwhelming, built up a 27-0 halftime lead and whipped the Green Bay Packers, 37-20.
They still have one more step to go, and a tough one it will be against a Chiefs team that stomped the Tennessee Titans, 35-24, in the AFC title game. Yet considering how the Niners got to where they are, logic and forecasts are best ignored.
Everything was going south until Kyle Shanahan was hired from Atlanta to be head coach and John Lynch, a onetime All-Pro defensive back left broadcasting to join him as GM. Then the Niners traded for Jimmy Garoppolo, who was backing up Tom Brady with the Patriots.
In 2017, the first year of the new regime, the Niners lost their first nine games. In 2018 they were 4-12, when in the third game Garoppolo was lost for the season with an injury.
But in 2019, with the QB returning, with a rookie defensive end named Nick Bosa and with a determination to play knock-'em-down football, the Niners turned back the clock and now boast a 15-3 record for the season.
If there’s one person who would seem to represent the 49ers perserverance, it is running back Raheem Mostert. He was not drafted, then from 2015 to 2016 was with five different teams.
On Sunday, needing to replace the ailing Tevin Coleman, he set an NFL record by becoming the first player ever to rush for at least 200 yards (he had 220) and score four touchdowns in a playoff game.
“I never gave up,” said Mostert, who grew up in Florida — where Super Bowl LIV will be held on February 2 — and then went north to play at Purdue. In the pros, he bounced between the Dolphins, Ravens, Browns, Jets and Bears in a year and a half.
Then, fortunately for both, came the 49ers.
“It’s hard to believe after all this I’m not only going to the Super Bowl," Mostert said, “but it is in my home state.”
The Niners, as they did in the divisional win over Minnesota, just kept running the ball. They had 42 rushes compared to only eight passes. Stone Age football, perhaps, but obviously successful football.
Said Niners receiver Debo Samuels of Mostert, “Man, it was crazy. It seemed like every run that he did, he was about to score. I was just out there going crazy.”
While Mostert, who carried 29 times and averaged 7.6 yards a run, was going wild.
”I did have a lot of doubters and naysayers,” said Mostert. “But this is surreal. I can’t believe I’m in the position I’m in and did the things I did tonight. The journey’s been crazy.”
For Shanahan, it’s been the result of hard work. “These guys are a bunch of fighters,” he said of his team’s intensity.
Then, considering Mostert, he could have added, “and runners.”
