El quarterback Joe Montana he is sitting in front of his locker calmly explaining to a platoon of reporters cHow he led the 49ers on an 83-yard drive in the final seconds of the game that gave the San Francisco 49ers their first NFC championship and first trip to the Super Bowl in franchise history.
It’s hard to believe that the same man who takes all the quiet to say every word, is the same man who burned the grass of Candlestick Park in his team’s 28-27 win over the Dallas Cowboys coach Tom Landry.
The clock on the scoreboard indicated that With 58 seconds remaining in the final period of the NFC Championship game, coach Bill Walsh called a timeout to exchange words with Montana on the sideline..
The Notre Dame program graduate jogged onto the field to join his teammates. With third down and six yards to score, he looked for Freddie Solomon, but then noticed his other wide receiver: Dwight Clark, which was found only on the diagonals.
“I was being pressured, but they weren’t on top of me. I had a little space,” Montana told at the end of the game about sending to the end zone which he did without having the right balance.
The touchdown along with the Ray Wersching’s extra point gave San Francisco the victory to advance to Super Bowl XVI where they will face the Cincinnati Bengals at the Pontiac Silverdome.
But when Joe Montana threw the pass, he did so “off the left foot,” as the coaches say, meaning off balance. The ball spiraled into the hands of Dwight Clark and the crowd rose in jubilation.
“We’re not overwhelmed by it,” Joe Montana said at his locker of the pressure of that play. “But we’re excited about the honor of playing in the Super Bowl.”
Joe Montana never seems to be overwhelmed by anything. And perhaps that is why it has become so successful so quickly. In just his third season, he has turned the NFC’s most frustrated franchise into a chance to “win it all” for the first time since the 49ers were founded in 1946.
Until today, the 49ers had never won more than three division titles. But now they are the NFC champions for the first time. And in two weeks they have a chance to win the Super Bowl.
The program of the 1981 Championship Games
Montana finished the game with 286 yards, three touchdown passes and a ticket to his first trip to the big NFL game.
