January 22, 1989: Super Bowl XXIII is played at Joe Robbie Stadium -- now named Hard Rock Stadium -- in the Miami suburb of Miami Gardens, Florida. It is a rematch of Super Bowl XVI, with the San Francisco 49ers playing the Cincinnati Bengals.
The 49ers had won that earlier Super Bowl, and also Super Bowl XIX, beating the Miami Dolphins. Quarterback Joe Montana had been named the Most Valuable Player both times. The 49ers went 10-6 in the 1988 season, while the Bengals went 12-4, the best regular season in franchise history to that point. This would be the last game for Bill Walsh as head coach of the 49ers, as he was retiring, and handing the team over to his top assistant, George Seifert.
Both teams had key injuries in the 1st quarter. The 49ers lost offensive tackle Steve Wallace to a broken ankle. And the Bengals lost their best defensive player, defensive tackle Tim Krumrie, to a broken leg. The 1st quarter also saw the 1st reversal of an officials' call due to instant replay review: Montana threw a pass that Mike Wilson caught on the Bengals' 2-yard line, originally ruled incomplete, but proven complete on the replay.
Nevertheless, they had to settle for a field goal. The Bengals could also get only a field goal, in the 2nd quarter, and the game went to halftime, 3-3. The teams traded field goals again in the 3rd quarter, making it 6-6. But with 34 seconds left in the 3rd, Stanford Jennings returned a kickoff 93 yards for a touchdown, and the Bengals led, 13-6.
The 49ers came right back, and less than a minute into the 4th quarter, Montana threw a 14-yard touchdown pass to Jerry Rice, and the game was tied. With 3:20 to go, Jim Breech kicked his 3rd field goal of the game, and the Bengals led, 16-13.
The 49ers returned the ensuing kickoff to their own 15 with 3:10 on the clock, but an illegal block penalty on the play pushed the ball back half the distance to the goal line to the 8. So Montana had to get 92 yards -- maybe a few less, to get a tying field goal.
In the huddle before the 1st play of the drive, he pointed into the crowd, and said, "Hey, isn't that John Candy?" The renowned comic actor was, indeed, at the game. The movie calmed his teammates down, and "Joe Cool" went to work.
There were 11 plays. The last was a 10-yard pass to John Taylor, with 39 seconds left. The 49ers won, 20-16. Rice was named the game's MVP, but Montana's drive was what everyone would remember. The following year, they won a 4th Super Bowl, beating the Denver Broncos, 55-10, with Montana outclassing John Elway and winning a 3rd Super Bowl MVP.
In 2006, NFL.com ranked Super Bowl XXIII as the best Super Bowl game. In 2019, a poll ranked it 19th on a list of the 100 Greatest Games of the NFL's 1st 100 years.
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January 22, 1989 was a Sunday. Baseball was out of season. Because they didn't want to have to compete with the Super Bowl for sports fans' attention, both the NBA and the NHL scheduled only 2 games for the day. In the NBA, the New York Knicks beat the Portland Trail Blazers, 120-116 at the Portland Memorial Coliseum. Clyde Drexler scored 48 points in defeat for the Blazers. And the Boston Celtics beat the Detroit Pistons, 112-99 at the Boston Garden.
And in the NHL, the Buffalo Sabres beat the Boston Bruins, 6-4 at the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium. And the Detroit Red Wings beat the Washington Capitals, 4-3 at the Capital Centre in the Washington suburb of Landover, Maryland.
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