Five Signature (non-Super Bowl) Moments from 49ers History

To keep the 49ers Signature Moments list from being too obvious and perfunctory, I chose not to include any Super Bowl moments.

No Super Bowl-winning Joe Montana drives. No John Candy. No retellings of Steve Young’s he finally did it saga. Also no Jimmy Garoppolo overthrows, no Kaepernick-to-Crabtree almost touchdowns, no power outages.

Speaking of Colin Kaepernick: this list also does not include his 2016 political protests. Hopping onto my soapbox in this venue won’t make the world any better; it will just make this remember some touchdowns-themed series a little less fun. 

Even with John Candy sidelined, the 49ers still gave us far too many Signature Moments to choose from, including some obvious and perfunctory ones. The #1 moment would remain the #1 moment even if we included the Super Bowls. But eliminating Super Bowl moments should at least make it harder for you to predict moments #2 through #5. 

#5 (Tie): Running Wild Against the Packers in the Playoffs

The 49ers beat the Packers in the 2012, 2013, 2019, 2021 and 2023 playoffs. It has become a tradition, one that could easily endure for years to come. The most memorable 49ers-Packers playoff matchups were the ones in which the 49ers running game treated the Packers defense like the 98-pound weakling in an old bodybuilding advertisement.

There were 22 players on the field, dozens more on the sideline, 69,732 fans at Candlestick Park and millions watching from home.

For much of Saturday night’s playoff game between the San Francisco 49ers and the Green Bay Packers, it seemed as if they all revolved around a single, budding, shining star: Colin Kaepernick.

Kaepernick, justifying November’s decision by San Francisco Coach Jim Harbaugh to hand the team’s championship aspirations to an untested, strong-armed second-year quarterback, dominated the field with long scrambles and pinpoint throws. He kept the Packers’ defense as off-balance as a slowing top, set records and outplayed the reigning N.F.L. most valuable player, Aaron Rodgers.

And on a cool, clear evening that may stand as the coming-out party for San Francisco’s next great quarterback, he led the 49ers to a 45-31 victory and a spot in the N.F.C. championship game.

“Just a guy playing football,” 49ers wide receiver Michael Crabtree said of Kaepernick. “Man, he’s making it happen — with his feet, his arm, making plays. He’s a playmaker.” – John Branch, New York Times, January 2013.

(Some of the YouTube links are not opening properly in Ghost right now. You can find a link to Kaepernick's performance against the Packers here. Brace yourself for a jump scare at around the 2:30 mark.)

Ah, to live in a world where Kaepernick was just a guy playing football.

Packers head coach Mike McCarthy famously sent his defensive staff – led by venerable Dom Capers – to Texas A&M after their playoff loss to the 49ers to learn how to defend the read option. That’s a polite way to say that McCarthy very publicly shifted blame to Capers, in a way that’s unseemly for even an offense-oriented head coach, and let it linger there. McCarthy didn’t send himself to a symposium with Urban Meyer and Mike Leach or anything after the Packers lost 23-20 to the 49ers in the playoffs the following year. Enjoy your season, Steelers fans!

But I digress. 

McCarthy, Kaepernick and Jim Harbaugh were gone by the 2019 playoffs. But the spanking the 49ers gave the Packers felt remarkably similar.

To take the biggest step toward completing one of the most dramatic turnarounds in NFL history, the San Francisco 49ers did on Sunday what they've done so many times throughout the season: They rode the wave provided by an unlikely hero.

With Raheem Mostert, the journeyman running back/accomplished surfer, putting together one of the most dynamic rushing performances in playoff history, the Niners throttled the Green Bay Packers for the second time this season, this time by a score of 37-20, on their way to their first NFC Championship crown since the 2012 season.

"He has earned everything that he's gotten," coach Kyle Shanahan said. "He earned today and he's just such a good person and for him to help us as much as he has on offense and I mean, you guys saw the play he made last week on special teams. ... But I can't say enough good things about Raheem."

At one point, Mostert considered walking away from the game before a pep talk from his wife, Devon, convinced him to stick with it.

"I got immune to being cut. I just wanted to show the world what I can do. Honestly, it was just one of those things where I really had a talk with my wife and I was just like 'Hey, what do you think should happen?' after I got cut. She said, 'Hey, if you love your job, if you love this sport, you will do anything for it and if you love what you do, you will do anything for it.' That was my philosophy from there on out."

Now, Mostert is the leading rusher on the NFL's second-best rushing attack and heading to the Super Bowl. – Excerpted from Nick Wagoner, ESPN, January 2020. 

Mostert rushed for 220 yards and four touchdowns in that game. Jimmy Garoppolo threw just eight passes in the victory. Mike LaFleur did not send defensive coordinator Mike Pettine to Monsters University or Saturday detention after the loss. He didn’t even fire Pettine for another year. But again: I digress.

The 2012 and 2019 49ers seasons ended in fourth-quarter Super Bowl heartbreak. But both the Harbaugh-Kaepernick 2012 team and Kyle Shanahan’s 2019 team captured our imaginations with their deep rosters and their innovative-but-old-school tactics. They always looked a little like David slaying Goliath when they faced the Packers in the playoffs. Especially later in the decade, it was easy to embrace a team that made Aaron Rodgers look a little silly.

#4: Packers Out-Niner the Niners

Lest Cheeseheads think they are once again getting picked upon by the Too Deep Zone, let us acknowledge that the Packers beat the 49ers in the playoffs every year from 1995 through 1997. In the process, the Packers established themselves as the spiritual successors to Bill Walsh’s 49ers.

The 49ers had been here dozens of times, watching a muddied team limp from the Candlestick Park field with their Super Bowl hopes stolen.

It brought some of them to tears Saturday afternoon when that team was them.

Somebody get the ghosts on the line. The Green Bay Packers are going to a championship game for the first time since Fuzzy Thurston was still fuzzy after a 27-17 victory over the defending Super Bowl champion 49ers.

“Before the game, somebody was using that high school term - ‘They put their jocks on the same way we do,”’ said Packers quarterback Brett Favre, grinning behind his usual stubble. “I guess they do.”

And as it turns out, they also mourn the same.

“On this team, winning the Super Bowl is the only standard of excellence,” said 49ers guard Jesse Sapolu, still dabbing moisture from his eyes. “What happened today, I will not accept it. I will not.”

“We could find plenty of excuses but we can’t take them,” Young said. “We’ll take it on the nose.”

And off the ears, and between the eyes, and off the top of the head, and everywhere else after being victimized by a Three Stooges-style beating and embarrassment by the better-prepared Packers. – Excerpts from Bill Plaschke, L. A. Times, January 7th, 1996.

No 49ers Signature Moment list would be complete without one playoff pratfall. Kyle Williams’ muffed punts were my initial choice. But Plaschke does a fine job setting the scene and establishing the mood in the column above. The 49ers weren’t just beaten by the Packers. They were out-smarted and out-49ered. It felt like a changing of the guard, and it was: Favre replaced Young as the NFL’s reigning quarterback, and the Packers supplanted the 49ers as the league’s head-coaching incubator and idea factory.