The 49ers beat the Philadelphia Eagles 14-0 Sunday and won an all-expense-paid Saturday afternoon in Green Bay, Wis., where if you're not careful, you can freeze your tundra off.
Second prize was two days in Green Bay.That's an old joke, but the 49ers are an old team.
The 49ers are so old, they've forgotten they are old.
Sunday, for instance, Steve Young and Jerry Rice, who are as old as the Gabor sisters, frisked through the green goo and gusty rain at Candlestick Park to keep the 49ers' Super Bowl dreams alive.
Rice said it was the worst weather and field conditions he can remember in his home stadium during his 12-year career. And yet:
Young, 35, scored a touchdown on a nine-yard slog up the middle, running through Eagles with the elegance of a mule pulling stumps.
Rice, 34, scored the game's other touchdown on a short pass from Young, one play after making a stretching one-handed catch, his impression of a frog tongue-snatching a fly.
For sustained excellence, it was hardly the 49ers' offense of the good old days of 1981-94.
But those three plays, those two players, are the reasons the 49ers are still the 49ers, and still in the running for a trip to New Orleans on Super Sunday.
Yes, the 49ers' defense pitched a shutout Sunday, with the help of Philadelphia's quarterback. And two guys alone, no matter how great, do not make a Super Bowl quality football team.
But Young and Rice define this team. The toughness, the big-play capability, the heart.
Young, on his TD run, took a battering-ram shot to the ribs from a Philly defender and needed several pain-killing injections to finish the game.
Rice took a hard shot to the side of the head in the first quarter, was momentarily dazed, and had a lump the size of a walnut behind his right ear.
Yet Rice - his left hand, at least - was right there when the 49ers needed it.
You might think the other 49ers would get sick of Young and Rice getting so much credit, when 53 men suit up for every game. You would be wrong.
"Steve is the difference out there," said 49ers linebacker Gary Plummer, who helped keep Eagles superstar Ricky Watters out of the end zone all afternoon. "To take the pounding he does . . . He's just showing more and more toughness. I just think Steve Young is on a mission. A lot of people tried to write him off earlier in the year and he feels he's got something to prove. . . . It's inspirational."
Earlier in the season the old Young was sidelined with a severe groin pull and two concussions. Forget about this season - his career was in jeopardy.
As Young's agent, Leigh Steinberg, said Sunday, "The minute Steve's groin came back, he started feeling better and playing great."
No question, Young's groin has earned the award as NFL Comeback Groin of the Year.
And Young himself, though he probably won't finish in the top five in league MVP voting, might really be the MVP.
Green Bay quarterback Brett Favre, Denver quarterback John Elway and Denver running back Terrell Davis, for three, will get more votes. Young might not finish in the top 10. Maybe the voters didn't realize Young and his groin had been reunited.
Young has played the last six games in a blaze of greatness. He led the league in passing efficiency, and for the last month he has been his team's primary ground threat.
Forget about the 49ers achieving some kind of run-pass balance. It's too late for that. Their ground threat is their quarterback.
Sunday, Young ran for 65 yards, while the rest of his team ran for 53. On the nine-yard TD, he was supposed to plunge into the line for a one-yard first down, but he decided not to fall down until someone tackled him.
No quarterback in the league at this moment is as scary to a defense as Young.
"I cannot stand to play against a running quarterback in these (sloppy field) conditions," Plummer said. "It's very, very difficult on a defense."
The 49ers have certainly stopped worrying about Young getting hurt on his out-of-pocket experiences. Sunday, with two minutes left and a 14-0 lead, some genius sent in a naked bootleg for Young, a sprint around right end with no blocking. Young shouldn't have even been in the game at that time, let alone sent on a kamikaze run.
But the 49ers figure that Young, after all he's been through this year, is now immune to serious injury. Young certainly feels that way.
The 49ers' win was unimpressive in many respects. The Eagles are not in the class of the elite teams such as Green Bay and Dallas, and yet the 49ers struggled.
But the 49ers like their position. It's Young and Rice, and roll the dice.