| | | | | | | | Monday, February 11, 2002
MNF flashback: 1991 season opener -- 49ers vs. Giants
By Will Weiss
ABC Sports Online
"It was like the last game. It was just like déjà vu. It's kind of a helpless feeling, it happened all over again. You just hope the ball would go on the ground or something would happen ... but it didn't."
-- San Francisco 49ers tackle Steve Wallace
On Sept. 2, 1991, "Are you ready for some football?" was a rhetorical question.
|  | | Ottis Anderson's running helped set up Matt Bahr's game-winning 35-yard field goal. |
The San Francisco 49ers had waited eight months for their rematch with the New York Giants, who ended the 49ers' chance at a three-peat when Matt Bahr nailed a 42-yard field goal at the gun to give the Giants a 15-13 victory in the NFC championship game en route to a Super Bowl title. Joe Montana was forced to leave that game in the fourth quarter due to a broken pinky finger on his right hand courtesy of Giants DT Leonard Marshall. And Jeff Hostetler, filling in for the injured Phil Simms, asserted himself as a quarterback to be reckoned with.
The scene shifted to the Meadowlands, and a lot had changed since their previous meeting. One change, however, seemed to give San Francisco a significant edge. Bill Parcells, who led the G-Men to two Super Bowl titles, resigned as head coach after the Super Bowl, and unknown Ray Handley took over the reigns.
After Bahr drilled a 35-yarder to open the scoring, Steve Young, who started in place of the still-injured Montana, teamed up with Jerry Rice on a 73-yard TD pass late in the first quarter to silence the crowd of 76, 319 and give San Fran a 7-3 lead.
It was Rice's only catch of the game.
The Giants responded in the second quarter, taking the lead on a 66-yard drive. Hostetler took control, scrambling 25 yards to the 49ers' 17 and hit Howard Cross for a 16-yard strike down to the 1. From there, Ottis Anderson rumbled in for the touchdown.
Despite the strength of the Giants' defense, a six-point lead (after Bahr hit his second field goal as the half ended) against the offensive powerhouse that was the 49ers of the early '90s was not safe.
The Niners capitalized on great field position following a short Sean Landeta punt. Starting from the Giants' 42, Young hit John Taylor and Brent Jones for 13-yard strikes to get within striking distance.
Then, on a first-and-goal from the 5, Young rolled around left end and scored. On the play, San Francisco guard Guy McIntyre had grabbed an onrushing Lawrence Taylor by the neck and pulled him to the ground. An official looking right at the play did not call a penalty, the touchdown stood, angering the fans, and, worst of all, LT.
As New York took over from its own 22 with 4:40 left and down by a point, flashbacks of January began to creep in.
Hostetler hit Stephen Baker with passes of 14 and 8 yards, and Anderson lumbered for six yards on a crucial third-and-five to move the Giants to midfield. It would be the first of three third-down conversions on the drive.
Three plays later, from the San Francisco 45, the Giants lined up in their patented shotgun formation with Dave Meggett in the backfield. Meggett took Hostetler's pitch around the right side, and thanks to a succession of key blocks from Doug Riesenberg, Mark Ingram and Baker, who knocked his man out of bounds, was able to move the chains and keep the drive alive.
The hat trick came when Hostetler completed an 11-yarder to Ingram on third-and-10 to get to the 27 and, more importantly, in field goal range.
Two runs from Anderson put the Giants on the 18-yard line and the clock wound down to 10 seconds. Enter Matt Bahr, and a collective, "Not again," from 49er fans.
Hostetler spotted the ball quickly after a low snap from Steve DeOssie, and Bahr nailed his second 35-yard attempt of the night with :05 remaining, assuring the Giants a 16-14 win. For the second time in eight months, a Matt Bahr field goal gave New York a two-point victory over San Francisco.
Several streaks were snapped in that game:
The 49ers had won 18 consecutive road games, an NFL record that still stands.
The 49ers had won 16 straight games on artificial turf.
Ottis Anderson's 1-yard TD run in the second quarter was the Giants' first touchdown against San Francisco in nine quarters.
Both the San Francisco 49ers and New York Giants have supplied fantastic finishes and an incredible amount of drama on MNF through the years, but their 1991 season opener, which marks its 10th anniversary on Sept. 10, was certainly one for the ages.
Will Weiss is the editor of ABC Sports Online's Monday Night Football Web site.
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