Yes, it seems Brady and I actually have something in common. Watching “Rise of the 49ers,” the new four-part documentary series that Brady executive produced, I returned to the sports nirvana of my ’80s youth, when I thought something was wrong with the universe if the Niners didn’t win the Super Bowl. Which is how Patriots fans must have felt between 2002 (when the Pats won their first title) and 2019 (when they won their last). The series premieres Sunday on AMC and AMC+.
It’s heady stuff, rooting for a dynasty, and Brady, who appears on camera throughout the series, comes off as an unabashed member of the 49er Faithful. Glad to have you, Tom. He’s a little younger than me; when Montana hit Dwight Clark in the back of the end zone at Candlestick Park to beat the Cowboys in the 1982 NFC Championship Game — the moment, known thereafter as The Catch, that started the Niners’ dynasty — Brady was only four years old. He was also at the game, which puts him one up on me.
What I’m trying to say is that it’s hard for me to be objective about all this. But if I try, I can say that Brady’s superfandom is among the series’ strengths. It makes him more like a human being and less like a smooth-faced super hero. When Brady goes outside to throw the ball around with Rice, the all-everything former 49ers wide receiver widely regarded as the greatest football player of all time, he doesn’t try to curb his enthusiasm. “It’s not often that I get to throw to the GOAT,” he gushes. And he means it. “I think Jerry sets the standard for every football player who ever has played, or will play in the future,” he says elsewhere in the series.
But “Rise of the 49ers” is also pretty cerebral, which is appropriate for a team whose former head coach, the West Coast Offense innovator Bill Walsh, was often labeled a genius. As a Bay Area native, Brady, working with directors Ryan Kelly and Nick Mascolo, knows his way around the region’s cultural history, including the often-terrifying ’70s. That decade included the Patty Hearst kidnapping, Dan White’s assassination of San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and City Supervisor Harvey Milk, and the rise of Jim Jones’s People’s Temple, a social experiment that ended tragically with a mass murder-suicide in South America. It was a strange time to live by the Bay, especially for a kid. “Rise of the 49ers” makes the argument that the 49ers helped San Francisco heal and turn the corner in the new decade.
The series utilizes rare video of Walsh running meetings, and benefits from candid interviews with Montana; his successor at quarterback, Steve Young; Rice; hard-hitting safety Ronnie Lott; and other key figures, including former owner Eddie DeBartolo Jr., who hired Walsh in 1979 and shared his coach’s feverish perfectionism. Fans weren’t the only ones who expected a Super Bowl every year. The team did, too. They won it all after the 1981, 1984, 1988, 1989 and 1994 seasons.
And when they didn’t? Things could get tense. Most of the action covered in “Rise of the 49ers” unfolded in my teenage years, a fuzzy time for most, even more so for those of us in Berkeley. I had forgotten just how poorly Walsh handled the revolving quarterback door with Montana and Young, both of whom are pretty honest about how unpleasant the experience was. At one point, Walsh even announced that the team had a “quarterback controversy,” beating the press to the punch. (Counter argument: The Niners won three Super Bowls after this happened — two with Montana at the helm, one with Young.) I had forgotten that DeBartolo threatened to fire Walsh on a regular basis. And I had forgotten that Montana crossed the picket line to play with temporary replacement players during the 1987 players’ strike, an act that still leaves a bad aftertaste for some of his former teammates. Then again, when you’re Joe Montana, you can get away with things that mere mortals cannot.
All was not peachy during the 49ers dynasty. But it was still pretty damn sweet, for me and for my famous fellow fan. Brady gets off one of the best lines of the series when he’s chatting with Rice: “I don’t think I could have been what I was if I grew up rooting for the Jets.” The Raiders, formerly of Oakland and now the Las Vegas franchise in which Brady owns a minority stake, took the term “Commitment to Excellence” as their team motto. But Brady makes the case that his commitment to excellence came from the Niners. With “Rise of the 49ers,” he returns the favor.
RISE OF THE 49ERS
Directed by Ryan Kelly and Nick Mascolo. With Tom Brady, Joe Montana, Jerry Rice, Steve Young, Ronnie Lott, Eddie DeBartolo Jr., Keena Turner, Ray Ratto, Ron Barr, and others. Premieres at 9 p.m. Sun. Feb. 1 on AMC and AMC+; concludes at 9 p.m. Mon., Feb. 2.
