Steve Young led the 49ers to their fifth Super Bowl title in the 1994 season, but that doesn’t mean everything was smooth sailing.
The hall-of-fame quarterback joined Tolbert, Krueger & Brooks on Wednesday and recounted the most upset he’s ever been on a football field, when 49ers head coach George Seifert pulled him out of a game vs. the Eagles at Candlestick Park.
“I remember ’94…it’s early on and we’re getting crushed by the Eagles out of nowhere at home and George (Seifert) comes to Jerry (Rice) and I on the sideline and says ‘Look, we’re going to end this. We’re done, I’m pulling you out.’ I go, ‘Fine, fine, fine,’” Young began.
“So we go out for the next series and next thing I know, I’m watching Elvis Grbac come running on the field. And I don’t know what it was. I don’t know if it was the pent up years of frustration and anxiety I had with George and how he dealt with me..I don’t know. It was like, ‘This is the time?! I’m coming out because we’re down 40-8 and it’s me? Is this how this is going down?’ And I remember just flipping my lid, and I rarely — my kids will tell you — I rarely raise my voice. It’s hard to wind me up.
“I don’t know what it was about that moment but I had had it. And I went to the sidelines and I went after George and I was in his ear. I was saying things that I’ve never said to another human. I was looking for a fight, and I wanted to go to fists there, right now. So people were trying to hold me back but they didn’t want it to look like a big scene and I just wouldn’t let up. I give George so much credit, for just staring out, straight ahead and letting that wind just go by like nothing.
“So the game ends and I’m still lit up. I go, ‘I’m not leaving this stadium until he and I have it out! You tell him I’m not going anywhere!’ I stayed in the locker room, in the training room, ‘You tell him to come in here now!’ And what did George do? He got in his car and left!” (laughing)
“He let me just sit there stewed man. There was nothing worth breaking down there because the stadium was so old but I wanted to break everything I could see.”
The story of course has a happy ending. The 49ers would lose just one of their next 11 games, and were dominant in the postseason, destroying the Chargers 49-26 in the Super Bowl.
Listen to the full interview below.