December 26th, 2004. A meaningless matchup between the worst team in the NFL and a pretty good Buffalo Bills team, albeit one that didn’t make the playoffs was historic even if no one knew it at the time. We had just witnessed the fall of professional football’s Roman Empire. This is a look at the day the San Francisco 49ers dynasty finally died.
The day the San Francisco 49ers dynasty died
The 2004 season was miserable for the San Francisco 49ers. I went to two Niners games that year. The first was the contest in Seattle which saw the team shutout for the first time in 420 games. The second was the Boxing Day blowout against the Bills.
And while the Seahawks loss was terrible, historic and a story I’ll get to one day, it wasn’t the franchise’s deathblow. To understand that, we must first examine how we got to this moment in history.
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The San Francisco 49ers dynasty 1999-2004
It was rough sledding for the 49ers in 1999. Steve Young suffered a concussion in week three and wouldn’t play another NFL game. Jeff Garcia came in and got benched. Steve Stenstrom replaced him and was much worse. Garcia then got another shot.
However, the defense was the real problem here. They could not stop the run. They could not stop the pass. It was a disaster. And not surprising considering R.W. McQuarters was in the lineup.
The 49ers selected a pair of quarterbacks in the 2000 NFL Draft. Both were picked before Tom Brady and neither was any good. In fact, Jeff Garcia kept the starting role and was decent. On the other hand, the defense was still bad. There was also some petty drama between Jerry Rice and Terrell Owens.
Things turned around in 2001 and 2002 with the team making the playoffs both years. However, after a divisional round loss in 2002, the 49ers front office totally lost the plot. For reasons, former UCLA Head Coach Terry Donahue found his way into the General Manager’s seat.
He decided to fire Steve Mariucci despite the coach successfully navigating a transition period for the franchise. That was a bonehead move. Replacing him with Dennis Erickson was sheer lunacy. Fans hated the decision since the former Oregon State coach put together a Jeff Fisher-esque streak for average seasons when in charge of the Seattle Seahawks.
The first season under Erickson was a chaotic mess. They finished 7-9 but you never knew what team was showing up from week-to-week. And considering the side went 10-6 the prior season with Mariucci, most of the blame was placed at the feet of the front office who replaced him.
Garcia was cut after the 2003 season as the team was up against the salary cap. That was true to a certain extent. However, there is more to this decision than meets the eye. Tim Rattay had started three games in 2003 and went 2-1. His stats were not particularly good but here is what the team was also thinking.
They saw what Tom Brady did as a seventh round pick in the 2000 NFL Draft and thought Rattay could do the same exact thing as him since he was also a seventh round pick in the 2000 NFL Draft. The problem, beyond talent, was that Rattay was constantly injured.
That meant San Francisco turned to another seventh rounder, Ken Dorsey. The Miami passer and future Bills Offensive Coordinator had no business starting NFL games. He was beyond brutal, although it wasn’t his fault. The team should have known better than to go into the season with Dorsey and Rattay at quarterback.
The entire 2004 campaign was an unmitigated disaster. However, the team managed not to get blown out at home. Fans were unhappy and there were boos at Candlestick on the regular. But there was always that classic 49ers optimism. They were just a few moves and some player development away from being a contender again. This is what 20+ years of winning does to a fanbase.
That brings us to this week 16 showdown in 2004. The Byzantines had siphoned off half the empire and the Vandals were at the gates. The San Francisco 49ers dynasty was about to meet its untimely end, even if no one knew it then.
Pre game
I got to Candlestick a few hours earlier, although it was known as Monster Park on this occasion. The weather was classic Candlestick. Windy, partly cloudy and cold. Honestly, it wasn’t that bad given the time of year.
The atmosphere in the parking lot before the game was more of a relief than anything else. Just happiness the season was almost over and hopefully the front office and coaching staff would be fired. Eventually, we made our way to our seats which were six rows up behind the end zone. I remember being stoked to be able to sit this close to the field for so cheap.
The game
The first quarter was uneventful. Neither team scored and Niners fans were pretty happy with what they saw. No three-and-outs. No getting gashed for a huge gain. Things would go downhill from here.
The Bills had the ball at the start of the second quarter and just marched down the field. Drew Bledsoe had plenty of open receivers. The drive ended with a Willis McGahee touchdown. A blink-and-you-missed-it three-and-out by the 49ers allowed the Bills to basically do the same thing, although that drive ended in a field goal.
A Ken Dorsey strip sack snuffed out the next 49ers possession. Drew Bledsoe once again tore up the 49ers secondary, this time finding Lee Evans for a touchdown. San Francisco got the ball back with less than 30 seconds left, ran a meaningless play, called a timeout with nine seconds remaining, ran another meaningless play and that was half.
That last series infuriated those in attendance. Fans were pissed and let out their anger as the team retreated to the locker room at halftime. After the booing, though, that’s when reality set in. The offense couldn’t move the ball, the defense was chasing the Bills around like a pee-wee football team. Most of the crowd sat there simmering in silence understanding there was no quick fix. This team wasn’t a player or two away.
The second half started with San Fransisco barfing up a long kick return. It was just more of the same from there. On San Francisco’s first possession, Dorsey threw a bad interception and was benched. I mean, coaches later said he had a bruised finger, but everyone knew what was up.
When Cody Pickett entered the game, there was a cheer. That hope died down when the Niners promptly went three and out. Things just descended into a farce at this point. There were some sloppy turnovers by both sides.
Buffalo put backup Shane Matthews in the game with the score 27-0 and San Francisco having only mustered six first downs in three quarters of play. Midway through the last frame, there became this urgency from everyone involved for the team not to get shutout. From fans, players, and the coaching staff. The goal was clear: score.
The 49ers proceeded to put together a long, clock-killing drive in the fourth quarter that eventually led to a Kevan Barlow one-yard touchdown plunge. Fans were happy the team’s home non-shutout streak was still alive. There was some celebration. And it would have been an impressive drive had San Francisco not been down by 41 points and playing against backups.
The Bills got the ball back, ran it 10-straight times and killed the last six minutes of the fourth quarter. The game lasted a little under three hours because of these efforts.
The end of an era
Heading out of the stadium was like leaving a funeral. It was deathly quiet, apart from chatter about how some fans were thankful they didn’t get shut out. Mostly, people finally began realizing the 49ers, as most fans had known them, were dead.
The bridge to Montana, Jerry Rice, Bill Walsh, Roger Craig, Ronnie Lott, Ken Norton Jr., and all the way back to Dwight Clark’s catch in 1981 were scorched. There was no going back. This was the day the San Francisco 49ers dynasty officially died.
Up until this point, Niners fans still had some hope. As bad as 2004 was, they had never been beaten comprehensively until this point.
The aftermath
The Niners wouldn’t get their act together for years. Drafting Alex Smith with the first overall pick in 2005 couldn’t reverse the franchise’s fortunes. A lack of leadership hamstrung rebuilding efforts, with many folks finally finding out what it was like in the old days when Steve DeBerg was the starting quarterback.
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