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It’s common knowledge among football fans that the greatest comeback of all time in the NFL came in 1992, when the Buffalo Bills overcame a 35-3 deficit in the third quarter to overtake the Houston Oilers, 38-35 in a playoff game. NFL Films even christened the game with that title in their Greatest Games series. A much less ballyhooed game was a contest played on December 7, 1980 at Candlestick Park between the San Francisco 49ers and New Orleans Saints that was the second greatest comeback in NFL history, or the greatest comeback in regular season history. The 49ers and Saints were NFC West division rivals back then, and were young teams headed in opposite directions. San Francisco was a young team on the rise, although they entered the game with a 5-8 record. The Saints, meanwhile, were winless at 0-13, and going nowhere.  New Orleans, despite its’ dismal record, was hot early in the game, and built a 35-7 halftime lead on the strength of three Archie Manning touchdown passes and a couple of short TD runs by Jack Holmes. Then the Niners’ young quarterback, Joe Montana, mounted the tremendous comeback by his team, throwing for a pair of TDs and running for another, to tie the game and send it into overtime, where Ray Wersching won it 38-35 with a field goal. One of Montana’s key targets of that era, Freddie Solomon, also had a big day, catching one of the scoring throws and returning a punt 57 yards for another touchdown.

Years later, the 49ers always considered this game a springboard for their future success, as they dominated the rest of the decade, winning Super Bowls behind Montana and coach Bill Walsh, and over time being hailed as the “Team of The Eighties”. “Joe Cool” Montana, like Frank Reich of the Bills did prior to leading that historic playoff comeback, gave a premonition performance in his college days similar to the Saints game. In the Cotton Bowl in 1979, he led Notre Dame to a furious fourth quarter comeback against the University of Houston, as the Fighting Irish overcame a 22 point deficit to win, just as Reich had done in his college days at the University of Maryland. What’s even more amazing is that Montana was suffering from the flu in that Cotton Bowl clash, earning the game the nickname of  “The Chicken Soup Game.” So how did the two teams fare the rest of that 1980 season? The Saints avoided the ultimate embarrassment of going winless by beating the New York Jets the next week, and finished 1-15. The big comeback may have been a springboard for future San Francisco success, but the “spring” didn’t come immediately. The 49ers dropped their final two games, to Atlanta and Buffalo, and wound up 6-10.

Joe Montana