Steve Young
Jon Steven Young is an American former professional football quarterback who played in the National Football League for 15 seasons, most notably with the San Francisco 49ers. He also played for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who drafted him. Prior to his NFL career, Young played for the Los Angeles Express of the United States Football League for two seasons. He played college football for the BYU Cougars, setting school and NCAA records.
Young left the fledgling USFL after the 1985 season to join the Buccaneers. Two seasons of underwhelming play led Tampa Bay to trade him to the 49ers in 1987. A quarterback controversy ensued as he spent several seasons backing up starting quarterback Joe Montana, who had previously led San Francisco to four Super Bowl championships. Young became the 49ers' full-time starting quarterback in 1991. He was named the AP's NFL Most Valuable Player in 1992 and 1994, and was the MVP of Super Bowl XXIX where he led the 49ers to a victory over the San Diego Chargers with a record six touchdown passes. During his 1994 MVP campaign, Young set a new NFL record for passer rating at 112.8. He is a member of the College Football Hall of Fame and the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Young was an extremely efficient passer, leading the league in passer rating a record six times and completion percentage and yards per attempt five times. At the time of his retirement, Young had the highest passer rating among NFL quarterbacks with at least 1,500 passing attempts., he was ranked fourteenth all time in passer rating, and was ranked fourth-highest amongst retired players, behind only Drew Brees, Tom Brady, and Tony Romo. Young's 43 career rushing touchdowns are fourth among quarterbacks, while his 4,239 rushing yards ranks sixth all time.
Early life
Born in Salt Lake City, Utah, Young attended Eastern Middle School, and Greenwich High School in Greenwich, Connecticut, where he played quarterback on its Cardinals football team.Young earned 1978 All-FCIAC West Division First Team honors in his junior year, his first year as a starter. In his senior year, Young rushed for 13 touchdowns and earned All-FCIAC West Division First Team honors, and was named to the CIAC All-State team. In the rush-first option offense run by Greenwich, he completed only 41 percent of his throws for 1,220 yards, but ran the ball 267 times for 1,928 yards. On Thanksgiving Day in November 1979, Greenwich lost to Darien High School, known for its "Tidal Wave Defense", 17–0. During his senior year, Young was co-captain of the football, basketball, and baseball teams. In basketball, he averaged 15 points a game. In baseball, Young hit.384 and played center field when he was not pitching. Young was 5–1 and threw a 3–0 no-hitter against New Canaan High School.
College career
Young was heavily recruited by the University of North Carolina. Coach Dick Crum was enamored of Young's running ability, and wanted him to run his option offense. Young instead chose BYU. Initially, he struggled at throwing the ball, and BYU's coaching staff considered switching him to defensive back because of his athleticism. However, Young worked hard to improve his passing skills and eventually succeeded record-setting Jim McMahon as BYU's starting quarterback. In his senior season, Young led the nation in passing yards, passing touchdowns, passer rating, and his 71.3% completion percentage set an NCAA single-season record. Young also added 544 yards rushing. With Young at quarterback, BYU set an NCAA record by averaging 584.2 yards of total offense per game, with 370.5 of those yards coming from his passing and rushing. The Cougars finished the year with an impressive 11-1 record; Young was named a unanimous All-American and received the Davey O'Brien National Quarterback Award, which recognizes the nation's best collegiate quarterback each year. He also finished second in voting for the Heisman Trophy, behind Nebraska running back Mike Rozier. Young capped his college career by scoring the game-winning touchdown on a pass from the halfback in BYU's 21-17 victory over Missouri in the 1983 Holiday Bowl.Young finished his college career with 592 pass completions for 7,733 yards and 56 touchdowns, along with 1,048 rushing yards and 18 touchdowns. He was enshrined in the College Football Hall of Fame in 2001.
Professional football
At the time Young left college the USFL was proving a serious challenge to the established NFL, and he had a choice to be a top pick in either league.Los Angeles Express
Young was selected by the USFL Los Angeles Express in the first round of the 1984 draft held that January. Express general manager Don Klosterman told Young that if he signed with the Express, his head coach would be John Hadl, a former All-Pro quarterback who had shepherded John Elway through his first year in the NFL. Klosterman also told Young that Hall of Fame coach Sid Gillman, who had been hired as a consultant, would tutor him on how to be a pro quarterback.The regular 1984 NFL draft would not be held until May. To help influence his decision, the Express offered an all-sports record 10-year, $40 million contract. Young was convinced, and signed with the Express in March 1984. He agreed to take his payment in the form of an annuity paid out over forty years to help the fledgling team.
After missing the first six games of his rookie season while taking some college classes in order to graduate on time, Young started the final 12 games. He had a respectable year, highlighted by becoming the first pro football player ever to pass for 300 yards and rush for 100 in a single game.
Despite a roster which included future NFL players such as Jojo Townsell, Mel Gray, and Kevin Nelson, and making the Western Conference title game in Young's first season, the Express were never able to create a sustaining fan base in Los Angeles. They often played to sparse crowds that looked even more so in the then-95,000-seat Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.
Near the end of the 1984 season, Express owner J. William Oldenburg was forced to give up control of the team after multiple reports revealed he had misrepresented his net worth. Houston Gamblers minority owner Jay Roulier was cleared to buy the team, only to be pushed out shortly before the 1985 preseason when it emerged that he too had lied about his finances. For all intents and purposes, the Express' 1985 season ended at that point. The league took over the team and cut the budget to the bare minimum. Notably, no money was allocated to replace injured players. This left the Express in a precarious position when a rash of injuries decimated the roster. Even before then, Young and the other young players concluded that the Express would not be around for the planned move to a fall schedule in 1986, even if the USFL survived. With this in mind, they played tentatively so as not to harm their NFL prospects. As a result, despite fielding essentially the same team as a year prior, the Express cratered to a 3–15 record.
Before the Express' final home game — which had been moved to Los Angeles Pierce College in the San Fernando Valley — the bus driver refused to leave unless he was paid up front, in cash. Young contributed some money, as did the team trainer, and the driver took them to the game. In the season finale at Orlando, Young had to line up at tailback because the Express had no healthy running backs left on the roster.
It was reported that Young had insured his contract and would still be paid until 2027. However, facing the prospect of both a faltering owner and an unstable league, Young had already renegotiated his 10-year deal down to 4 years, and had already collected a total of $4.8 million of the $5.8 million due in total through the final year of that deal, working out to an annual rate of pay of $2.4 million for his first two seasons that was the highest in all of American sports. Included in that negotiation was a payment of $1.4 million for the balance of the 10-year annuity, and salaries for the remaining two years of the deal "in excess of $450,000" annually according the USFL Commissioner then overseeing the LA Express.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Young grew increasingly dissatisfied with the disarray surrounding the Express. Just a week before what proved to be the last USFL title game, Young gave the USFL an ultimatum – find a new owner for the Express, or allow him to buy out his contract and go to the NFL. Soon after the league decided to suspend the Express's operations for the 1986 season, Young bought out his Express contract and signed with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who had made him the first pick in a supplemental draft of USFL and CFL players a year earlier.By this time, the Buccaneers were in the midst of what would be 12 consecutive 10-loss seasons. They posted identical 2-14 records in Young's two seasons with them, going 3-16 with him as a starter. Young threw for only 11 touchdowns with 21 interceptions while completing fewer than 55% of his passes.
San Francisco 49ers
The Buccaneers selected University of Miami quarterback Vinny Testaverde first overall in the 1987 NFL draft because Young was deemed a bust. Young was traded to the San Francisco 49ers on April 24, 1987, to serve as a backup to Joe Montana. 49ers coach Bill Walsh was impressed by Young's natural abilities, and believed his lackluster numbers were primarily due to the lack of talent around him in Tampa Bay.The Buccaneers received second and fourth round draft picks in the trade, which they used to draft Miami linebacker Winston Moss, and Arizona State wide receiver Bruce Hill, respectively.
Montana's backup: 1987–1990
Young played behind Montana for four years, but shone as a backup. Substituting for an injured Montana, early in the first quarter of a 1987 game against the Chicago Bears, Young threw four touchdown passes in a 41–0 victory. In their 1987 divisional playoff game against the Minnesota Vikings, he replaced Montana in the second half after the team fell behind 27–10. The 49ers still lost the game, but Young had a good performance, completing 12 of 17 pass attempts for 158 yards, a touchdown, and an interception while also leading San Francisco in rushing with 72 yards and a touchdown on six carries.On October 30, 1988, Young ran for a 49-yard, game-winning touchdown against the Minnesota Vikings. It was the longest run by a 49ers quarterback until 2012 with a 56-yard run by Colin Kaepernick. Young started the game out with a 73-yard touchdown pass to John Taylor, after Montana went down with an injury. The play earned the 49ers a 24–21 victory and a bit of revenge on the Vikings for their previous season's playoff loss. The win turned out to be crucial. Without it, the 49ers would have finished the season 9–7 and missed the playoffs. Two other teams in their division, the Los Angeles Rams and New Orleans Saints, had 10–6 records. Instead, the 49ers won their division, earned the #2 playoff seed, and went on to win the Super Bowl.
In 1989, Young displayed potential to become the team's starter in the future. While Montana won the NFL MVP award and led the team to a victory in Super Bowl XXIV, Young had a good season, completing 69% of his passes for 1,001 yards, eight touchdowns, and only three interceptions. On October 22, 1989, he posted a perfect passer rating of 158.3 when he completed 11 of 12 passes for 188 yards and three touchdown passes in a 37–20 victory over the New England Patriots.
Young rushed for a career-high 102 yards on just eight carries against the New Orleans Saints on December 23, 1990, making him only the second 49ers quarterback to rush for at least 100 yards in a single game. The 49ers lost the game 13–10.
In his four seasons as a backup, Young threw 23 touchdown passes and only six interceptions.