#12: Montana to Taylor Beats Bengals

In case you missed the introduction, for the month of September HMB is counting down the Top 30 Bay Area sports YouTube clips. It's pretty simple: one per day for the entire month, excluding the Oakland A's and Raiders because, well, we don't like them and from their attendance figures, it doesn't seem that many people do either.

Though already a Niner legend, this game-winning touchdown drive in the final minutes to torment the Cincinnati Bengals once again firmly cemented Joe Montana not only as the most clutch player of his era, but as one of the best quarterbacks of all-time. This clip is of the entire final drive and includes many great minute details that make the game of football such a joy to watch:

• I know this is cliche and overplayed, but the collective cool on the entire 49er team is impressive. Not one player makes a bonehead mistake like we see today (um, the Cedrick Wilson fiasco of a couple years back), and everyone knows their role in the two-minute drill. Conversely, in every shot of Sam Wyche it looks like he might crap his pants.
  
• One of my favorite things to do when feeling depressed about current Niner football (which may not be the case much longer if the sun keeps shining in the right places...) is watch old Niner footage to see just how methodical, disciplined, and freakin' good the past teams were at executing offensively. Seriously, this final drive is a clinic. They mix draws, short sideline passes, out patterns, and go over the middle when they should. This offense used to be a legitimate machine under Montana; it's uncanny.
• I love the big pass play to Jerry Rice that he nearly breaks for a TD. First of all, the Niners were backed up to 2nd and 20 after a penalty on Randy Cross and the Bengals showed some excitement for the only time on the drive. Montana then ripped their collective hearts out with the rope to Rice. The other detail I love about this moment--and an example of why I love John Taylor so much--is that after Rice is tackled near the 20 you can see Taylor slamming his hands on the ground because he couldn't finish off his block to let Rice walk into the end zone. Now you'd see some idiot running around celebrating and sauntering even though he blew what should have been a touchdown. Taylor didn't, but he'd get his revenge.
• The Bengals literally make no defensive plays on the entire drive. Montana isn't pressured on a single play.
• The cut-away shots to Boomer Esiason, Wyche, and #91 and his Tom Selleck-esque mustache get me every time.
• Bill Walsh went out on top and didn't come back to taint his legacy ten years later. Some things are just meant to end the right way.

That's about all I can think of. There are a multitude of YouTube clips featuring this drive so I have picked two to post here. The first is our official selection (the drive in its entirety) but I couldn't resist the other one just because it is a pretty sweet dramatized version.