Were 10-6 49ers of '91 as good as record indicated?

[SeahawkFever]

No knock on Deion at all, but I find that interesting. They went from having the 1994 defensive player of the year in Sanders to having two players who received votes for the award in 1995 in Merton Hanks and Ken Norton Jr.

Hanks and Norton weren't good players. They got votes because the media had a 49er bias back then.

As for 1995, I must have forgot to mention them. They weren't as good as their record indicated, either. Also, they only played one more game against a team with a winning record than the year before (seven in 95, six in 94). Not much difference as far as schedules go.

They may have repeated with Young, but there were no guarantees. They probably beat Philly, but I have a feeling that Dallas would have played a much better game in the rematch than they did in the regular season.

Why were Merton Hanks and Ken Norton Jr. not good in your opinion? And out of curiosity, since you said the media had a bias in favor of that team, was Dana Stubblefield any good? (he won the defensive player of the year in 1997)

As for the schedule, I didn't mean to imply it was necessarily significantly harder, but pro football reference's simple rating system marks down the Niners by a bigger margin in 94 than 95, but both schedules were easier than average.

I do find it interesting though that the Niners had a better rank by points in defense in 1995 than 1994 even though Deion Sanders wasn't there, and the schedule they played was at least as hard if not slightly harder. Just the way things played out I guess then.

I mentioned those two because I saw votes for defensive player of the year when I looked up the players on the team defensively, and I saw three other Associated Press all pros on that defense in 95. In addition to Hanks and Norton who were first team all pros, there was a first team selection for Eric Davis, a second team selection for Tim McDonald, and a second team selection for Dana Stubblefield.

And out of curiosity, since the team won more games than it should have in your opinion, how many should the Niners in the 90's have been winning in your opinion? Just curious.

[Brian wolf]

Good points by all, yet Merton Hanks had big-play ability on those defenses for SF. Norton was better for Dallas but still contributed to three straight SB wins, not too shabby. The Niners had every chance to win the NFC in 90, 92, 93, 95, 96, 97 and 98 but floundered once they played better defenses in postseason. They bought and outsmarted everybody for their lone championship for 1994 ...

[7DnBrnc53]

Why were Merton Hanks and Ken Norton Jr. not good in your opinion? And out of curiosity, since you said the media had a bias in favor of that team, was Dana Stubblefield any good? (he won the defensive player of the year in 1997)

Hanks was a showboat who got a lot of fluky INT's, wore a bandanna, and did a chicken dance. So, the Niner-lovin' media fawned all over him. Also, Norton just wasn't a great player. As for Stubblefield, he was good, but lazy. He never had anywhere near 15 sacks again.

there was a first team selection for Eric Davis, a second team selection for Tim McDonald

More favoritism by the media. Eric Davis wasn't that great, and Tim McDonald should have been playing LB (with Woodall playing SS, and someone better than Hanks at FS).

[SeahawkFever]

Why were Merton Hanks and Ken Norton Jr. not good in your opinion? And out of curiosity, since you said the media had a bias in favor of that team, was Dana Stubblefield any good? (he won the defensive player of the year in 1997)

Hanks was a showboat who got a lot of fluky INT's, wore a bandanna, and did a chicken dance. So, the Niner-lovin' media fawned all over him. Also, Norton just wasn't a great player. As for Stubblefield, he was good, but lazy. He never had anywhere near 15 sacks again.

there was a first team selection for Eric Davis, a second team selection for Tim McDonald

More favoritism by the media. Eric Davis wasn't that great, and Tim McDonald should have been playing LB (with Woodall playing SS, and someone better than Hanks at FS).

Why should McDonald have been playing linebacker and Lee Woodall strong safety in your opinion?

[Brian wolf]

McDonald could have played linebacker but I don't think Woodall could have played safety. Hanks was an All-Pro and second team All-Pro three times with 33 interceptions and six TDs, with four PBs as well ... hyped by the media, sure, but the best teams are always overexposed ...

Stubblefield could play when he wanted too but not as good as Young. Davis was better after finally having a great day against Dallas in the 94/95 NFC Championship game.

[7DnBrnc53]

Why should McDonald have been playing linebacker and Lee Woodall strong safety in your opinion?

This wasn't my idea, but it came from a guy that I talk football with a lot online (and a former 49er fan).

It goes like this: What Lee did best was pass coverage, pursuit, and open-field tackling. Also, he was a former college safety (that was never stout against the run).

As for McDonald, my friend said that the McDonald that played in Arizona was a force at safety, but by 1994, most of the plays he was making were at the line of scrimmage or on the other side of it. Also, he said that McDonald's coverage skills were horrible from 1994-2000.

[sheajets]

I saw them as an unlucky playoff team that was left out in the cold and better than their record indicated

The last 6 games of the season they were second only to the Redskins as the best team in football

They had that absurd Hail Mary loss to Atlanta which should've been a win...17-14 in a game where Mike Cofer missed all 4 field goal attempts. A couple of absolute snoozer losses to the Raiders and the Saints...6-12 and 3-10. Very un49er like. Games where the 9ers opponents struggled to crest 200 total yards and still won. Young and Bono were bad in both efforts

[CSKreager]

I saw them as an unlucky playoff team that was left out in the cold and better than their record indicated

The last 6 games of the season they were second only to the Redskins as the best team in football

They were not unlucky- they got what they deserved.

they had a lot of red flags that get overshadowed because of that meaningless 6-game run (3 of them against mediocre also-tabs)

The first 10 goes matter a lot more than a bunch of wins that meant nothing

[SeahawkFever]

I don't think the 49ers were as good as their record in 91, but that was true in several other 90's seasons as well, like 1990, 92, 93, 94, 96, 97, and 98. Those teams have more flaws than people give them credit for because people were brainwashed by the 9er-loving media that their players were the "best ever".

For example, some in the media were trying to make their 97 D as good as the 85 Bears at the time. However, when you play against Craig Whelihan and Heath Shuler, you are gonna look way better than you are. However, the Packers exposed them in the NFC Title Game.

Also, the 92 team won several games they should (or could have) lost, like at home against the Rams (if TE Jim Price doesn't fumble with around five minutes left) and both games against the Saints. They fixed their running game issue with Watters, but their D started to get worse.

My apologies for replying to this quote again, I had one more thought to add, and this quote provided the best context for it.

The performances of the 49er teams in the years Steve Young was their quarterback (1991-1998):

1991:
.625 win percentage (tied for ninth in the league with Kansas City, Philadelphia and Atlanta); put up while facing opponents that had a win percentage of .512 (10th highest that season).


1992:
.875 win percentage (best record in the NFL); put up while facing opponents who had a win percentage of .461 (24th out of 28)

1993:
.625 win percentage (tied for sixth with the Raiders and Lions); put up while facing opponents who had a win percentage of .469 (24th out of 28)

1994:
.813 win percentage (best record in the NFL); put up while facing opponents who had a win percentage of .465 (24th out of 28)

1995:
.688 win percentage (tied with Green Bay and Pittsburgh for third best); put up while facing opponents who had a win percentage of .504 (15th out of 30)

1996:
.750 win percentage (tied for second best record with Carolina); put up while facing opponents who had a win percentage of .449 (28th out of 30)

1997:
.813 win percentage (tied for the best record with Kansas City and Green Bay); while facing opponents who had a win percentage of .463 (26th out of 30)

1998:
.750 win percentage (tied for fourth with the Jets); while facing opponents who had a win percentage of .469 (23rd out of 30)

If we are going purely by opposing win percentages, 1991 and 1995 were the hardest regular season schedules they played, and 1996 was the easiest.

If you ask me, the 94-95 range is the period where you have the best argument for them having been as good as their record. 94 ended up winning a title of course (easier regular season schedule, but they translated it into the playoffs so there's that), 95 wasn't much worse statistically and played the toughest schedule of any team to finish at least 10-6 that season. Among playoff teams only Miami played a harder schedule.

If you want to take everyone's win percentages at face value, you could maybe argue 91 was as good as its record too given where their schedule ranks; though that record had them out of the playoffs by tiebreaker in a stacked NFC.

The others I don't think were as good as their record, and how much worse than their record depends on your interpretation. Some teams had more injuries than others after all.

On the other end of the spectrum, I might argue that you have the best arguments for saying that 93 and 98 were worse than their record by the biggest margin (due to schedule and defense largely), but that's just me.

Either way though, those Niner teams were handed easier schedules, but also consistently won games and put up some very good statlines (if you go by point differential, they were fifth or better every year of this span with the 1992-1995 teams each having the best point differential in the league, 1991 coming in second and 1996 third).

Are schedules overlooked when we evaluate teams? Certainly. But it doesn't automatically mean we should disregard what they did; at least not in my opinion. Might make for a good tiebreaker when ranking teams that are comparable however.

Another thing I didn't realize is that Pete Carroll coordinated a couple of these defenses.