This week's finalist assignment was about my favorite football memory -- I  chose my favorite NFL moment.

I grew up in a town that didn't have an NFL team.  It was just one of the many crosses that I would have to silently bear in this life.   It wasn't easy growing up, but I would force myself to get out of bed each morning and tell myself that one day I would move to a city that had an NFL franchise.  

Until that day finally came, I found other ways to cope.  Since I didn't have ties to any particular team, I would root for the teams that had local college players on their roster.  The two players that I followed most earnestly were Scott Mitchell (University of Utah) and Steve Young (Brigham Young University).

Not to ruin the ending, but my favorite football moment doesn't have anything to do with Scott Mitchell.   In fact, if I were to highlight my five worst football memories, Mitchell would be in three of them – choosing to root for him remains one of the worst decisions of my life. 

I won’t go into the details of the Detroit Lions years and the complexity of rooting for a player who you slowly come to despise, but after Mitchell left and Barry Sanders retired, I felt like I could wash my hands of the Lions.  Today I feel like someone who escaped from a POW camp – I am grateful that I am free, but I weep for those I left behind. 

Actually, for a long time it wasn’t much easier rooting for Young.  When he was ready to leave college, I was excited to finally have an NFL team to call my own.  Projected to be the top pick in the NFL draft, Young instead decided to play for the Los Angeles Express of the USFL.  Of course he did. 

            So not only did I still not have a favorite NFL team, I had to follow a franchise that I was certain would be extinct in a few years (I was 11 years old at the time – why I was able to figure this out and Steve Young could not is still a mystery to me).  The low point came when the team actually played Young at running back because they had so many injuries to their backfield.

            Thankfully, the league’s demise came two years later and Young could finally play for a real, bona fide NFL team.  Well, sort of – he was picked in the supplemental draft by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.  It was like the NFL was retaliating against Young for spurning the league a couple of years earlier.  Or God was punishing me for something I had done – it was hard to be sure.           

While Young was with Tampa Bay, I saw him play exactly zero times.  Surprisingly, the networks weren’t interested in broadcasting Buccaneers’ games nationally so I never even saw my new favorite team.  Of course, that probably wasn’t a bad thing.  The only time I saw the Buccaneers were during the game “highlights” shown on the local newscasts, which typically consisted of receivers dropping balls and Young running for dear life. 

            After two years, Young was dealt to the San Francisco 49ers.  In retrospect, it was an event that might have saved my life – I’m not sure I could have recovered from the psychological damage that would be caused by voluntarily cheering for both the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Detroit Lions during my formative years. 

            However, San Francisco presented its own set of problems – namely, Young would be backing up the greatest quarterback of all time.  During the next four years that Young languished on the bench, I half-heartedly cheered for the 49ers to win each week while mostly hoping that Joe Montana would throw four interceptions that day or, if I was feeling particularly mean-spirited, wishing that he would go the way of Joe Theismann.  My ill feelings toward Montana only grew stronger as I heard stories, true or not, about the different ways that Montana intentionally snubbed Young.

            Throughout it all, Young was the consummate teammate – he always denied a rift between him and Montana, and he never lobbied for a trade.  In other words, he did exactly the opposite of what I hoped he would do.

            Finally, in 1991 after an injury to Montana, Young got his chance to be the starter on a real NFL team.  It had been eight years since he left college.  EIGHT YEARS!  Most players’ careers don’t even last that long, but here Young was, for all intents and purposes, just beginning his career. 

            During his first few seasons, Young set passing records and became a league MVP.  Despite these accomplishments, there were many 49ers fans who questioned if he could lead San Francisco to a Super Bowl win, especially after losing two years in a row to the Dallas Cowboys in the playoffs.  And of course, the comparisons to Montana lingered – if there was one thing that Young was guilty of, it was that he was not Joe Montana.

            Personally, I believed Young could win a Super Bowl, but I often wondered what it would mean if he didn’t.  He didn’t get the starting role for the 49ers until he was almost 30 years old, possibly spending the prime of his career on the bench.  One of the reasons he waited was because he really wanted to win a championship as a 49er (as a starter, not a backup).  Now he was 33 years old and most likely his window of opportunity was closing.  If he didn’t win a championship, were those years standing on the sidelines a waste?

Fortunately, the question became moot as Young proved he could win the big game in 1994.  After having another MVP season and setting an NFL record for the highest passer rating, Young led the 49ers over the Cowboys in the NFC Championship game. 

In the Super Bowl, Young had an outstanding performance – he passed for 325 yards and a Super Bowl record six touchdowns (breaking Montana’s record), while also rushing for 49 yards.  Young was named MVP of the game as the 49ers trounced the San Diego Chargers 49-26.  

  That remains my favorite NFL football memory.  Excuse me if I don’t go into more details of the game but, honestly, they really weren’t that important to me.  What was important was this player who I had followed for 10 difficult years realized the ultimate achievement of winning a championship and having one of his greatest games on football’s largest stage.

In that moment, everything was worth it – all the painful years in the USFL, in NFL’s Siberia and on the bench – it was all worth it.  Am I talking about Young or myself?  Well, both.  One win probably shouldn’t be so important that it can validate an entire career, but in this case I think that’s the truth.  The championship validated Young’s place in history, and it vindicated my loyalty to him.

I will share one specific detail about the game.  It’s a scene that I’ve seen numerous times on NFL Films, where Young is standing on the sidelines after the game is well in hand.  He is cherishing the win, then turns his back and says something like: “Can somebody finally take this #### off my back?” and a teammate pulls off the imaginary ####.

Since then I have heard Young say that was the one thing he regretted doing that day.  Personally, I love that moment.  For years, Young always said that he never felt the pressure of following Montana.  He did that because he always said the right thing – it might not be how he really felt, but he always said what was best for the team.  That’s why I love that moment so much – it was honest.  One of the great things about watching players win a championship is that you get to see their true feelings.  Their emotions are raw and they are unable to put up fronts that hide the truth. 

You remember the scene where Michael Jordan is laying on the floor, clutching the trophy while weeping after winning the NBA Championship?  It was a moment of vulnerability that you rarely, if ever, saw with Jordan.  It was the same with Young.  The scene on the sideline spoke volumes about the pressures that Young was under, and the joy and relief that came with winning a championship.   

Today, my NFL loyalties are more stable.  My childhood dream was fulfilled and I moved to a city with an NFL franchise (Chicago).  Just in time, too, or else I might have made the decision to put a stake in Alex Smith, which could have been a Scott Mitchell-like disaster. 

Of course, I’m probably too old and jaded to follow a player’s career in the same earnest manner as I once did.  That is why another player will probably never cause me as much grief as Mitchell and Young did.  And it is also the reason why my favorite NFL memory will likely never change.