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Walsh knew few of Montana's special strengths when he drafted Joe in the third round of 1979. Montana's reputation as a hot-and-cold player intrigued Walsh: "If he can have one hot game, why not two, why not three?" This man knows something about quarterbacks. As an assistant in Cincinnati and San Diego, he once took the rawest rookie and fashioned Anderson, and later found a floundering failure and made Dan Fouts. When he got his first N.F.L. coaching job three years ago, it was overdue.
"Early in Joe's second year, I privately decided he was to be our quarterback. As a rookie on a poor team, he did a fair job, is all. But his skills were obvious. He was just so active, so quick on his feet, so instinctive. The second year, we eased him in carefully, so as not to break him." Breaking Montana seemed a small danger to Assistant Coach Sam Wyche, a man who can speak of the relative gifts handed out to quarterbacks. He was a backup in the N.F.L. for nine years. "Montana made this fake against the Giants," says Wyche, referring to the first playoff victory over New York. "The linebacker was slackjawed. That's some thing you don't coach. You take credit after it's over, as if you did. A coach can improve technique but not instinct. I guess I envy Joe something he started with that I never had."
Wyche is talking about unbeatable confidence. "At the end of the exhibition season this fall," says Walsh, "we traded a quarterback who had broken an N.F.L. record for completions, Steve DeBerg. Honestly, I can't think of anyone Joe wouldn't have beaten out eventually." For Montana, surpassing DeBerg was a victory, and a loss. "As a kid, did your neighbor ever beat you at something four out of five," muses Joe, "and you still said you were better? I mean, you honestly felt you were better? You knew you were? Well, Steve and I were both that way."
Roommates, they shared a fondness for all contests, and if the Marriott Hotels that the N.F.L. teams frequent did not feature rumpus rooms buzzing with electronic whizbangers, DeBerg and Montana might have played checkers with match sticks on the tiles of the bathroom. "We could never quit," Joe laughs, "because somebody was always behind." Then he stops laughing. "It was unspoken, but we both knew. At practice, if one of us threw a pass that wobbled, the other would quack like a duck. We teased each other into staying friends, but we knew one eventually had to go if the other was ever going to have complete confidence."
DeBerg comes from Anaheim, where the team retreated to practice when fierce rains soaked San Francisco before the Dallas game. The two friends met for drinks. "It was great to see him," says DeBerg, "especially after all the triumphs he's had. We just talked about the good times. I can see that he loves it out here. He bought a place in Skyline [a half hour south of San Francisco]. He's had some of the best of California so far." Joe agrees. "I do like California," he says. "No snow, no scraping windshields. In the wintertime back home, there's just football. Here, it may not even be football weather. You can hide a little better. People say it's boring, but I like it a little boring."