The lowest point in a disastrous season for the 1980 Saints.
By Bob Rose | Canal Street Chronicles
Joe Montana and Bill Walsh. Those two names still send shivers up the spines and cause nightmares for older Saints fans to this day. The future Hall of Fame quarterback and coaching icons would spend a decade torturing the New Orleans Saints as members of the San Francisco 49ers. As great as those two were though, it very nearly never happened for what would come to be known as the team of the '80's. San Francisco was coming off of their second straight 2-14 finish as they entered the 1980 season. In 1979, the 49ers would hire Walsh, who had been a moderately successful coach at Stanford. Walsh used a 3rd round pick in the 1979 draft to select Joe Montana out of Notre Dame, a frail-looking and sometimes underwhelming quarterback. Montana started just one game in the '79 season, a loss, and Walsh's 49ers stumbled to a 2-14 record. Walsh began the 1980 season on the hot seat, and although Montana appeared in nearly every game that year, he was only a sporadic starter with unimpressive results. The Niners started the year with three consecutive wins, including a season-opening victory at New Orleans, but then lost eight in a row. They entered the 14th game of the 1980 season with a home rematch against New Orleans having won two in a row, including Montana's first career win as a starter, but sitting just 1 loss away from their fourth consecutive losing season and 7th of the last eight.
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