Super Bowl LVIII Newsletter: Jerry Rice Dives Into the 49ers’ Past, Present and Future

The NFL’s all-time leading receiver was on San Francisco’s last Super Bowl winning team and in Brock Purdy sees a quarterback who could lead it back to the mountaintop.

Jerry Rice called on Tuesday to discuss San Francisco 49ers history, Brock Purdy, Kyle Shanahan and much more. The Q&A that follows here has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Sports Illustrated: This interview can only start in one place. What did you make of young Kyle Shanahan, 49ers ballboy?

Jerry Rice: He was running around, but it’s not like he was there every day at practice or anything, so I don’t really have any recollections.

SI: Did you know he wore the same Deion Sanders jersey for 35 straight days the last time the franchise won the Super Bowl (1994 season, early 1995)?

JR: Oh, man. He was number 21, huh? And now he’s the head coach in San Francisco!

SI: You were on that last Niners championship team. If you told Jerry Rice in 1995 what Jerry Rice of 2024 knows happened with the franchise he defines, would young you have believed such a drought would come to be?

JR: I can’t believe it [has] been, like, what, 30 years? Since we won another Super Bowl? We have an opportunity coming up against a good opponent. They sort of took one away from us last time. Great rivalry. I’m sure the Niners are looking forward to it. Back then, we felt like we were always gonna win. The last one against the Chiefs, I felt that. We had a good chance of winning that one. But they weren’t able to come back.

Rice finished his career with 22,895 receiving yards, more than 5,000 yards ahead of the next closest player (Larry Fitzgerald) on the current all-time leaderboard :: Kyle Terada/USA TODAY Sports

SI: And to your point, it’s not like they haven’t had great players, great teams or great coaches in those 29 seasons since the last triumph. To me, that says winning the Super Bowl is just hard. Agree?

JR: It's a completely different game now. It's a copycat league and everything is run-pass option. It's almost like everyone is trying to trick each other. Back in the day, we would just line up, mano a mano, and say, let's play football. You didn’t see so much motion. So many chip blocks. So many bubble screens. All of that. We were more about throwing the ball downfield, being aggressive, getting you on your heels and really going for the throat, man. That was Bill Walsh’s philosophy. If we had you down, we were gonna try to choke you out.

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SI: What do you remember about Super Bowl LIV against the Chiefs in 2020?

JR: We always look back. We’ve got to put our finger on something … but I just felt like the [Chiefs] didn't have an answer for our running game. This is my opinion: we should have run the ball more, for sure. Look at Christian McCaffrey. We do pound that rock now, man. We need to Sunday. I'm serious. Because of the season and what he did for this offense. We got to run to open up the door for some play-action and throw the ball downfield.

SI: Speaking of, when’s the first time you heard of Brock Purdy?

JR: When we drafted him as Mr. Irrelevant. There's been so much talk about, you know, this guy's just a game manager … he can't actually run with the ball … he can do all that. Those debates are BS. He wins. He went over 4,000 yards. And he can extend plays, like he did against Green Bay, like he did against Detroit.

SI: This might be an odd question. But I see Joe Montana and Steve Young, two Hall of Famers you played with, as game managers of the highest order. I just wouldn’t use that phrase in either instance, with Purdy or with any other quarterback who helps their team win games in the typically derogatory sense. I’d argue managing games for QBs is kinda the point. Agree?

JR: Right! They criticized Joe for not having a strong arm. They criticized Steve for running all over. With Purdy, this guy finds a way to win, no matter what. That's a quality my guys had. That’s a quality you have to have, even when things aren’t going your way, and you're not playing as well, you still find a way to win.

SI: Do you ever dream about how many yards you’d gain and points you’d score in a Kyle Shanahan offense?

JR: Oh, my God. I was all about the YAC yards! These days, the ball is out so fast, there are so many screens, and I always could slow everything down on the field just a little bit, get to open areas and run with the ball and get to the end zone.

JR: So what do you think?

SI: Maybe a few 3,000-yard seasons …

JR: That’s what I’m talking about.

SI: So is this year the year the drought ends? Feel free to pull a Joe Namath.

JR: I can easily say it is, but they're gonna have to go out there, and they’re gonna have to own it, they're gonna have to take it. And take it from a very, very good opponent. I was one of those guys. I never underestimated my opponent. And the Niners are doing the same thing. If they practice right, do all the right things, we have a chance. And that's all you ask for: a chance. Right?

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Then to Now

The following anecdote from this season owes to all of the time the decision makers in Kansas City have spent together, all they’ve lived through, overcome, screwed up, impacted and changed. All led a series of subtle decisions this season that shaped the comeback few outside their building saw coming.

With head coach Andy Reid, Kansas City Chiefs executives made a critical decision as this uneven season spiraled further and further toward oblivion. Like Reid, Clark Hunt—part owner, CEO and chairman for the franchise his father founded—and others chose to trust those they had already put in place, allowing for grace to bury any sense of panic, to disallow even a hint. Hunt leaned on three czars in different facets of his operation—Reid, to coach the players; general manager Brett Veach, to find them; and team president Mark Donovan, for all the business stuff.

There weren’t many reasons for change, anyway, beyond the microwave, never-satisfied nature of sports in 2024. Reid has won 258 regular season games as an NFL head coach in Philadelphia and Kansas City. That’s good for fourth all time, behind only Don Shula (328), George Halas (318, but not in the modern NFL) and Bill Belichick (302)—and Reid’s tally doesn’t include his 25 postseason victories. He entered this season as one of seven coaches in league history to steer multiple franchises to championship appearances. His Chiefs have won eight straight AFC West division titles and played in four of the past six Super Bowls. He took the Eagles to another title game. Point is, any fan base that’s fortunate enough to land a coach with such accomplishments and then watch the same coach accomplish more than he ever has before … that fan base probably shouldn’t panic over four losses in six games. Many still would anyway, because that’s the NFL, where panic and rash decisions reign. Hunt never panicked, which meant Reid never panicked, which meant Patrick Mahomes never panicked, which meant no one ever panicked. How did the Chiefs get right to make another Super Bowl? That’s how, right there.

“A lot of people didn’t have us in the Super Bowl,” Hunt says, “based on how the team was playing in late November and early December …”

He trails off. There’s no need to say anything more. The Chiefs trusted the trio they put in charge. Reid trusted Mahomes and Kelce and other veteran leaders, not to mention the defensive coordinator who saved their season. Those leaders trusted their teammates. And Kansas City continued to build through adaptability, which has always powered its continual evolution.

Reid’s 25 playoff wins are the second-most all time, behind only Bill Belichick’s 31 :: Kirby Lee/USA TODAY Sports

On Background

This time last year, more than a few rumors swirled in regard to Andy Reid, his age and whether he might retire, with either result, after Super Bowl LVII. Worth noting: Reid never gave much credence to any of those. Also worth noting: people who know him best didn’t outright dismiss them, either. What must be noted: this year, I’m not hearing the same stuff. This year is proof that Reid can evolve, that he has always adapted—and how deeply, in both cases.

I wrote this for the main story on the Chiefs once the final whistle is blown, but I couldn’t fit it in. It’s quite relevant to what’s above.

“Even for the football coach who not only embraces adaptation but continues, at age 65, to adjust and tweak and try solutions no one else considered, some things will never change. Next season, unless Bill Belichick or Pete Carroll make a surprise return, Reid will still be coaching. He will be the oldest coach in the league. But to consider him dinosaurian—in relation to the Shanahans, McVays and McDaniels of his world—would miss what powered him as an assistant and in Philadelphia, would miss what powers him even now—a malleability borne from creativity and instinct that, in 2023, saved no less than the Chiefs season.”

Will Reid be back next season? No reason to rule out the slim-slim-slim possibility he’s not. But it would be levels beyond surprising if he stepped away, win or lose.

Quote Without Context

“This one is easily the most gratifying.” — Jeff Christensen, private coach for Mahomes

Context

In the AFC championship game, against the heavily favored Baltimore Ravens, and on the road, again, Christensen noticed two roughing the passer penalties that went against the Ravens. The force of one hit almost knocked Mahomes’s helmet off; the other, a blow to his facemask, did send his helmet flying. Mahomes bounced up, both times, immediately. And Christensen noticed Mahomes scanning downfield each time, looking for an open target. 

This, the QB’s bearing on two random but significant plays, embodied everything they have worked toward for years. Hence the quote from Christensen above. This triumph would be the most gratifying for what Mahomes has endured, in part. But he endured quite a bit in other runs—remember last year’s injury? It would be gratifying for the symmetry he built with Andy Reid, for the franchise he helped make international in scope and for the family that has been with him the whole way. 

But the “most” in most gratifying is none of that stuff. It’s growth. The kind that portends … dare we say … Tom Brady-like longevity and success.

Christensen wonders now how many will say they saw this coming, that they believed when nobody else did. He would bet there aren’t five text messages in all of America that prove any of those believers actually believed on Christmas night, when the Las Vegas Raiders spanked the Chiefs at Arrowhead. If those same claimants are also missing out on how a player who already reached greatness is somehow finding more, then so be it.