Click.
There had to be something else to watch, something better than this. It looked like something memorable was going to happen here Monday night. Once, “Monday Night Football” offered a compelling stage, and one of the best matchups of the late 90s, Green Bay-San Francisco, seemed worthy.
The Packers and 49ers had planned to be here for a reprise of their playoff passion play, franchises that have produced eight Super Bowl victories and memorable confrontations. At least that’s what it looked like when the schedule was released.
But the fireworks that exploded on the goal line did not continue into the game. Once more, in a transition season with too many stars conspicuously absent, “Monday Night Football” felt more like “Any Given Sunday.” Green Bay’s 20-3 victory was one more dreary confirmation of the end of the gold rush.
San Francisco (3-8) will complete its first non-winning season since 1982. The Niners lost their seventh consecutive game, their longest losing streak since 1980. When Steve Stenstrom’s fourth-down pass from the Green Bay 1 fell incomplete with 2:10 to play, before emptying stands beneath swirling, rainy skies, the 49ers completed their fifth game this season without an offensive touchdown.
The decline of two of the league’s most successful franchises in the decade dramatized the drop in quality of the Monday night schedule. Steve Young could only stand and watch. Mike Holmgren, imported by the Packers from the Niner organization in 1992, is coaching in Seattle.
Green Bay (6-5), with Brett Favre recovering from his thumb problems, has won its last two games after losing four of five games. The 49ers appear more and more like the 2-14 teams at the start of the Bill Walsh era, before The Catch, and also before The Cap. As in Salary Cap.
In Walsh’s second year as coach, the year Montana became the starter, San Francisco defeated the Giants to end their eight-game losing streak before a crowd of 38,574. One year later, the two teams met in the playoffs as they began parallel courses to a Super Bowl level. In all the years since, there were few occasions that led the 49ers faithful to make some of the sounds they made here Monday night.
They booed the home team. For nearly two decades they had celebrated a nearly seamless transition from Montana to Young, with capable backups offering injury insurance. This season, once Young crumpled on the grass at Arizona on Sept. 27, the transition was to Jeff Garcia and Steve Stenstrom. For all the angry noise here, Stenstrom could have been back at Soldier Field.
When the schedule was released, the matchup appeared to be one to savor for weeks. Nine years ago Friday, the meeting between the 49ers and Giants became the climax of weeks of anticipation.
At the end of the gripping Wild Card playoff meeting here last January, Terrell Owens was sandwiched between Packer defenders at the goal line with 3 seconds to play as he caught the game-winning 25-yard touchdown pass in San Francisco’s 30-27 victory. Less than 11 months later, what was left of the 165th consecutive sellout here felt that moment took place a very long time ago.
Young’s most recent concussion has his career in jeopardy at the age of 38. Jerry Rice, much of his speed gone at age 37, faces an uncertain future as the franchise deals with the overhaul to come.
The league’s transition, with its rise of once-dormant franchises and injuries to high-profile players, removed any anticipation from the 30th season of Monday night games. There was the decline of the 49ers, Packers, Vikings, Falcons, Broncos, Jets and Cowboys. There have been injuries to Brett Favre, Jamal Anderson, Vinny Testaverde and Deion Sanders.
So for one more Monday night, a short attention span was understandable. Birthday wishes and marriage proposals flashed on the message board beyond one of the end zones, while the game was going on, creating the potential for confusion. Did she say, “I do”? Or was that just “Boo.”
If you thought this Monday night was bad, here is your first warning for the start of the next century: January 3, San Francisco at Atlanta.
Click.
