Bavaro carries Giants past 49ers

DATE: Dec. 1, 1986
SITE: Candlestick Park, San Francisco
FINAL SCORE: Giants 21, 49ers 17

Mark Bavaro's determination and grit made him a favorite of New York football fans, and a favorite target of quarterback Phil Simms. (Allsport)

Setting the stage
New York entered this Monday night showdown with San Francisco a half-game behind Washington in a torrid NFC East race. The Redskins had improved to 11-2 the day before with a last-second 20-17 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals, and now the Giants, with a five-game winning streak, had to go to Candlestick Park and play the 49ers, winners of two Super Bowls in the previous five years.

San Francisco was struggling, though, with a 7-4-1 record. Thanks to the Los Angeles Rams' victory against New Orleans, the 49ers trailed the 9-4 Rams in the NFC West.

Joe Montana had thrown for 356 yards in a season-opening romp over Tampa Bay, but he had injured his back and sat out the next eight weeks after major disc surgery. In his place, Jeff Kemp and Mike Moroski had managed a mediocre 4-3-1 record before Montana returned to beat St. Louis, lose to Washington on a Monday night, and beat Atlanta.

The 49ers had revenge on their minds in this game. As the defending Super Bowl champions, they had been eliminated from the 1985 playoffs in the wild-card round in a 17-3 loss to Giants at the Meadowlands.

But to get that revenge, they would have to find a way to score against a New York defense that had held them without a touchdown in that playoff game and came into this game ranked second in the NFL in fewest points allowed (174 in 12 games).

Game day
After spending the first 30 minutes of the game getting embarrassed by the 49ers 17-0, the Giants headed to the lockerroom ready for the expected tongue-lashing from coach Bill Parcells.

It never came. What they got instead was a docile Parcells who simply told them to play the second half at the same level the 49ers had played in the first half.

"I was low-key," Parcells said. "The situation didn't need an explanation. The 49ers' intensity level had been about 10 notches higher than ours. We went over a couple simple things and I told our guys you still have time to win the game if you get moving."

Tight end Mark Bavaro, the intense and remarkably quiet third-year man from Notre Dame was paying close attention, and he heeded his coaches words.

On the Giants second offensive play of the second half, Bavaro caught a short pass over the middle from quarterback Phil Simms, broke a tackle by All-Pro safety Ronnie Lott, then proceeded to drag five 49ers on his back for 18 yards. By the time he was finally tackled at the San Francisco 18, he had rumbled 31 yards, and had effectively turned the game in New York's favor.

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"Mark Bavaro turned the game around," said Giants receiver Phil McConkey. "Six different 49ers hit him hard along the way. He carried Ronnie Lott on his back for 14 yards, he carried Keena Turner for eight. It took four men, finally, to bring him down. It was awesome. I'd never seen anything like it."

Two snaps later, Simms threw a 17-yard touchdown pass to Joe Morris, and within nine minutes, the Giants had three touchdowns and were on their way to a 21-17 victory.

"Bavaro drags a bunch of guys for a bunch of yards, he's an amazing guy," Parcells said. "A play like that gets you rolling, and it grows."

The 49ers were the ones who had rolled in the first half with 17 consecutive points. Ray Wersching kicked a 30-yard field goal late in the opening period, then Jerry Rice scored a pair of touchdowns, one on an 11-yard pass from Montana and the other on a 1-yard run off a reverse.

But New York got off to a great start in the second half as Pepper Johnson nailed Don Griffin on the kickoff at the 15, and the 49ers never dug out of that hole. They went three-and-out with New York taking over at the San Francisco 49 after the punt.

After Bavaro's big play and Morris' touchdown, the Giants' defense forced another three-and-out and New York took possession at its own 29. Soon, the Giants were faced with 4th-and-2 at their 49. Going with a "gut feeling," Parcells opted to go for the first down.

With the 49ers expecting a pass, he surprised them with a run, and Morris, who had been held to zero yards on nine carries, broke off right tackle for a 17-yard gain. Simms followed with a 34-yard TD pass to Stacy Robinson to cut the deficit to 17-14.

"It might not have been a wise call," Simms said of the Morris 4th-down run, "but sometimes you've got to go with what your stomach tells you and not what your head tells you."

Another 49ers series was snuffed without a first down, and New York, starting again at its own 29, needed just five plays to get into the end zone. A 49-yard pass to Robinson set up Ottis Anderson's 1-yard plunge to make the score 21-17.

In a span of 15 offensive plays, the Giants had produced 191 yards and 21 points. Simms was 8-for-9 for 175 yards in that stretch, and he called it "the best nine minutes I ever played."

Now it was left for Montana to produce one of his familiar rallies. However, the superstar who was just 70 days removed from the back surgery some had said would end his career, wasn't up to the task.

His last chance came with 5:04 left in the game. Starting from his own 32, he used a variety of short passes to move the 49ers to the New York 17 with 1:16 to go. On 3rd-and-4, Wendell Tyler was caught for a 3-yard loss by Carl Banks.

Then on 4th-and-7, Giant linebacker Andy Headen rushed unblocked up the middle and forced Montana into an incompletion to kill the rally.

In the lockerroom
Parcells: "We haven't been out of any game since 1984, although we were almost out of this one. To win on Monday night, on the road and being down 17-0, I'll take it."

Parcells on the 21-point explosion: "We haven't really had that kind of momentum all year. My guys, they're tough. They don't quit."

Parcells on the 4th-and-2 gamble: "I was trying to win the game, understand that. I wanted to do something to win the game. We were losing at the time, I wanted to do something that was aggressive. If it didn't work, we would probably have lost."

Giants guard Chris Godfrey on the team's mindset at halftime: "Turn the intensity level up. The sense was we were very close to losing the game, it was slipping through our fingers. We told ourselves these guys were playing harder than us, we weren't playing like we can, and we could blow it. We just had to play harder. It was incredible. We came out playing harder (in the second half) and quit fooling around, watching them."

Godfrey on the Bavaro play: "That play got the offense rolling. It brought back memories of what our offense had been like. It was a big charge for us."

Simms: "Physically they manhandled us up front, so we had to throw the ball more often than we might have wanted to. I can't dominate a game if I only throw 15 or 20 times, but if I throw a lot, I have a chance."

Giants linebacker Harry Carson: "If we're going to succeed in January, we have to win games like this. We can't use being on the road as an excuse. When we were behind 17-0 at the half, we stayed calm and kept our poise. We just believe that somebody is going to make the big play."

49ers coach Bill Walsh: "They beat us with a couple of big plays that really hurt us. This is the toughest loss we've had since I've been here."

Montana: "We had our chances right up until the end. I didn't feel like we were pressing in the second half. We just didn't execute."

Griffin: "They kept finding the open man and hitting him. I don't know how they were able to do that. They adjusted to us very well."

49ers guard Randy Cross: "We ran the ball well and Joe didn't get sacked all night. It will look good in the stats, but that's not the bottom line."

Postgame notes
The win for the Giants clinched at least a wild-card playoff berth. ... New York's six-game winning streak was its longest since 1970. ... Of New York's 11 wins to this point, nine had been by a touchdown or less. ... Anderson's touchdown was the first of his Giants career. ... Morris entered the game as the league's second-leading rusher and with six 100-yard games on his resume, but he was completely stymied by the 49ers. ... Rice's 1,367 receiving yards to this point were a new 49ers team record, and his two TDs gave him 15 for the season, tying the club mark. ... San Francisco's Dwight Clark caught three passes to extend his streak to 101 straight games of catching at least one pass. ... Though Montana completed 32 throws, his longest gain was just 15 yards.

Postscript
The following week, New York traveled to RFK Stadium and beat Washington 24-14 to move into sole possession of first place in the NFC East. And in Week 15 when the Redskins lost 31-30 to Denver, the Giants 27-7 rout of St. Louis secured New York's first division title since the 1970 AFL-NFL merger, and first championship since winning the NFL's Eastern Conference in 1963.

In 1963, the Giants lost the NFL Championship Game for the fifth time in six years, but there would be no repeat flop in 1986. New York routed the 49ers in the divisional round of the playoffs 49-3 blanked Washington 17-0 in the NFC title game, then closed the season with their 12th consecutive victory, a 39-20 win vs. Denver in Super Bowl XXI in Pasadena, Calif.