Jan 28, 1990; New Orleans, LA, USA; FILE PHOTO; San Francisco 49ers quarterback (16) Joe Montana in action against the Denver Broncos during Super Bowl XXIV at the Superdome. Montana was named the games most valuable player throwing for 297 yards and 5 touchdowns as the 49ers defeated the Broncos 55-10. Photo By Manny Rubio-USA TODAY Sports © Copyright Manny Rubio
PHOENIX — Hall of Fame quarterback Joe Montana, winner of four Super Bowl championships in which he was MVP three times for the San Francisco 49ers, showed up here Thursday as a pizza delivery boy.
But when he wasn’t hyping Papa John’s pizzas on NFL Network and other shows — “buy one for fifteen dollars on Super Bowl day and get one free during the next week” — Montana dished out his opinion on the subject of the greatest quarterback ever and his take on who will win Super Bowl XLIX Sunday.
It was exactly 25 years ago, on another Jan. 29, when Montana won that last Super Bowl championship, lifting him, in the eyes of many, to the exalted status of pro football’s greatest quarterback ever.
New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, already 3-2 in Super Bowls, goes against the Seattle Seahawks on Sunday as he tries to join Montana and former Pittsburgh Steeler Terry Bradshaw as the only signal callers with four wins in the big game.
Montana was asked if a win this Sunday might move Brady to the top of the list — past Montana himself — in discussions about the best quarterback in NFL history. Although well past his prime physically, Montana smoothly sidestepped the issue with his own high-level view of the topic.
“There is no way you can really say who is the best quarterback of all time,” Montana said. “I mean, look back at Otto Graham and Sammy Baugh and the remarkable things they did. Graham won like 10 championships. How can you devalue that? Look at them on film and try to say they couldn’t play today. You can’t.”
“Then decades later there were the great quarterbacks in my era who played a different game than Graham and Baugh. And now we are in yet another era with Tom Brady. He is definitely a great, great quarterback who plays a game that has changed a lot since I played.”
In fact, Montana shrugs whenever he hears somebody say he is the greatest quarterback of all time.
“Of course it’s nice to hear, but how can they possibly know that?” Montana said. “Tom Brady is a great, great quarterback with a few more years to play. He is great to watch. Never mind labeling him. Just enjoy watching him play while you can.”
Montana politely ignores the key word that bolsters the case of his being best ever — perfect. Not only was he 4-0 in Super Bowls, but he completed 83 of 122 passes for 1,142 yards with 11 touchdowns and no interceptions. He had a 127.8 quarterback rating and also rushed for 105 yards and two touchdowns.
And, although Brady has been to more Super Bowls, Montana admits he might not want to trade his 4-0 record for Brady’s 3-2 with at least one more to go.
“Playing in the Super Bowl is great,” he said. “But I like winning and I hate to lose, even if it means I get to play in another Super Bowl.”
On the subject of winning and Super Bowls, Montana is conflicted when pushed to pick a winner in Sunday’s game.
His wife, Jennifer, works with Seattle running back Marshawn Lynch on charity projects. Still …
“While I am pulling for Marshawn and Seattle, I think New England is going to win,” Montana said while on NFL Network.
“New England is kind of on that roll right now, and there’s nothing more than a controversy to bring a team closer together in a time of need. Everybody thinks it might a distraction. I think it’s a glue. I think it’s something the team says, ‘Forget about what everybody is saying and let’s go play the game.'”
The controversy Montana mentioned is the so-called Deflategate, about the NFL investigating underinflated balls in the AFC championship game.
Drilling further into what determines a Super Bowl, Montana talked about defense.
“When they say defense wins championships, they are right,” he said. “We had truly great defenses in San Francisco. This season when Seattle pulled out the NFC championship, you head a lot about Wilson’s two-point pass or his touchdown pass in overtime or a lot of things that looked dramatic in the end.
“But it was defense that decided that game early on when the Seahawks made a couple of amazing goal-line stands that kept Green Bay out of the end zone. That, as much as anything, is why Seattle won and is here.”
