SAN FRANCISCO — Before he won seven Super Bowls, Tom Brady captured imaginary triumphs in his backyard. In those youthful daydreams, he was Joe Montana throwing to Jerry Rice.
Brady was a youngster living in San Mateo, Calif., a few miles down the road from Candlestick Park, home of the dynastic San Francisco 49ers during the 1980s. The timing proved fortuitous, as did the geography.
He’s all grown up — and with a stunning football resume of his own — but the cinematic characters of that ’80s dynasty remain no less appealing. Brady became the driving force, as well as one of the executives, for a new AMC documentary limited series called “Rise of the 49ers,’’ which premieres with the first two episodes on Sunday and two more on Monday.
Before a special screening last Tuesday at San Francisco’s historic New Mission Theater, Ronnie Lott stood on the red carpet, the artificial turf of the movie business. Someone asked him what made the old 49ers teams so cinematic, and Lott answered by gesturing grandly behind him, where Montana was smiling for the paparazzi.
“Because you got guys like that,’’ Lott responded.
The cast of characters rolls out vividly in the new docuseries. Many of the participants were in attendance for the screening, including Lott, Montana, Rice, Steve Young and Eddie DeBartolo Jr. — all Pro Football Hall of Famers. They sat with their families in the fourth row, munching popcorn and watching the origin story of the five-time Super Bowl champs.
“What’s great in these kinds of moments,” Lott said, “is that you get to come back and just kind of see what it was all about in the first place, you know?”
The tagline for the four-part series is: “They Wrote the Playbook on Greatness.” Brady, now 48, wanted modern NFL fans to understand how much those vintage 49ers revolutionized football and shaped him as a player growing up in California. Brady serves as the narrator, and as he joked in the series, his career might not have taken off “if I had grown up rooting for the Jets.’’
It should be no surprise that in Episode 1, Brady tapped into his inner child by playing catch with Rice on the lawn — the quarterback with the most career touchdown passes (649 in the regular season) airing it out to the receiver with the most career touchdown catches (197).
“I never knew he was a big fan like that,’’ Rice said of Brady on Tuesday. “Just to hear him talk about the 49ers and when he was a little kid, then for him to actually throw me some footballs? Whoa. The ball was on me so fast, I thought this guy was actually going to have to ice his arm.’’
The docuseries highlights Montana, the third-round pick who was so scrawny as a rookie that he was mistaken for a kicker. There’s Bill Walsh, the brilliant, neurotic coach who some feel burned out too soon. There’s Rice, who became a 49ers target after Walsh stumbled across a Mississippi Valley State game while flipping channels in his hotel room one night before a road game.
There’s Dwight Clark, a receiver that scouts tried to talk Walsh out of drafting. And there’s DeBartolo, the pugnacious owner who took over the team with bravado but admits now he didn’t even know if a football was filled with air or stuffing.
Somehow, this unlikely assemblage of personalities transformed a roster of scruffy underdogs into the Team of the ’80s.
The Brady-to-Rice session early in the docuseries connects two of the most influential eras of the modern NFL. The dominant New England Patriots teams featuring Brady and coach Bill Belichick owe a debt to Montana and Walsh, whose ingenuity launched a revolution of offensive creativity.
A familiar scene from the 1980s: Joe Montana (16) and Jerry Rice (80) celebrating a San Francisco 49ers touchdown. (Greg Trott / Associated Press)
Walsh’s playbook serves as the through line for the series, and the production leaned heavily on the coach’s personal archives. The Hall of Fame coach used to film his speeches and his chalkboard sessions, partly to rehearse and partly because Walsh hoped the resulting VHS tapes would serve as a teaching tool for the next wave of young coaches.
“This was a point Steve Young made during the filming process,” said Ryan Kelly, an executive director of the series and a senior producer for NFL Films. “He said it was the most important point he wanted to get across: Bill filmed these meetings to hand out this knowledge of how he did things for future generations of coaches — especially minority coaches — in order to essentially pass along the San Francisco secrets to the next generation, to raise everybody up.”
Walsh recorded the footage on VHS, and many of those tapes were in storage. Then Walsh’s son, Craig, emerged a few years ago with a staggering surprise.
“We interviewed Craig, and he’s like, ‘Hey, I have all my dad’s tapes. You guys want them?’’’ said Nick Mascolo, also an executive director for the series and a senior producer at NFL Films.
The answer to that question was obvious, and now “Rise of the 49ers” profits from the unfiltered glimpse of Walsh at his motivational and strategic best. “Bill Walsh saw things in advance,” Brady said in the docuseries.
Much of Episode 1, titled “We Built This City,” details the origin story of Walsh, Montana, Clark and the gridiron mindmeld that led to “The Catch.” Brady has a personal connection to that famous 1981 NFC Championship Game triumph over the Dallas Cowboys. The future five-time Super Bowl MVP was with his family, sitting five rows from the top of the stadium, badgering his parents to buy him an oversized foam finger.
Later episodes tap into the prolonged quarterback controversy and tension between Montana and Young. Even now, the clips and sound bites pack a punch. Montana resented the idea that Young would replace him. “Game on,” he said in the docuseries. “I’m better than he is.” Young summed it up this way: “He was the best in the game. And I was trying to be.” Both quarterbacks revisited that period with apparent bluntness.
“Joe and Steve were very candid about it,’’ said Gotham Chopra, an executive producer for the series and co-founder of Religion of Sports. “I think Tom, he understood on an emotional level, going through a quarterback rivalry. He certainly had a coach who liked to play head games.”
Even with the passage of time, it was a tad surreal at the premiere to see Young and Montana joshing around like besties on the red carpet. Hugs, smiles, laughter. Young made it clear on the red carpet that their strained relationship stemmed from professional competition, and not personal dislike.
“I’ve said the truth; I’ve never wavered from the truth. Joe and I got along,’’ Young said Tuesday. “We laughed a lot. I supported him. We never had an argument. Never a crossed word.
“And as Bill said later in his life, ‘Yep. I got the best out of both of you.’ We both probably wanted to punch him, you know? … That’s as much drama as I recall.”
The behind-the-scenes footage of the series, some of it previously unaired, allows viewers to see Walsh’s full range — erudite professor, taskmaster, West Coast offense wizard and comic cut-up. Montana hopes fans get a better sense of how funny Walsh could be. He recalled how he and Lott visited Walsh shortly before Walsh died in 2007. They said their profound goodbyes and were heading for the exit when the architect of the 49ers dynasty called out.
“I said, ‘Do you need something? Can I get you something?’” Montana recounted.
There was a pause.
“And Bill goes, ‘Do you owe me any money?’”
Montana, now 69, laughed at the memory. One last wisecrack to remember his coach by.
Though the memories remain fresh, the filmmakers made use of a clever storytelling device by leaning on the power of images. They prompted emotional reactions by filming Montana, Rice and others reacting to black-and-white photos of the good ol’ days. Former offensive lineman Randy Cross broke down in tears upon seeing pictures of 49ers teammates who have since passed.
As “Rise of the 49ers” makes clear, their accomplishments will not be forgotten.
“The players — each and every one of them — told me that they had the same feeling that I did: It wasn’t a chore. It was something from the heart,” DeBartolo said. “It will be history forever.”
