Steve Young is watching himself. He's sitting in a cramped office on the second floor of the 49ers training facility in Santa Clara, studying tape and talking about what runs through his mind when he steps onto the field to play another game at age 37. He's describing what a blitz looks like and how he calculates his options in what, to you, seems a millisecond, but to him is enough time to peruse a restaurant menu. He's also explaining what he thinks it will take for his struggling team -- if you can call an 11-4 team struggling -- to continue as one of sport's most enduring success stories. Young's manner is cool, even chilly at first, but he's also precise and thoughtful, as you might expect from someone who earned a law degree during his off-seasons.

Young studies more as an NFL quarterback than he ever did as a law student. The tape he's watching shows the Niners' opening series against New Orleans in Week 12. They're down 3-0 and playing early catch-up for the fourth straight week -- a disorienting departure from the normal 49er practice of scoring early and often. On second-and-six, Young drops back, double-clutches and throws an interception. It isn't the sort of mistake you expect him to make -- particularly on his first pass of a game. So what, exactly, was he thinking?

"I had in my mind that we haven't been playing up to our standard, and I was gonna make it happen right away," he says. "That was probably my first mistake. A lot of times, you've got to let football come to you. When you're playing your best, you've found the fine line between two words that usually don't fit together -- aggressiveness and patience. Ninety percent of football is played off-balance, so it's all about how well you compensate. The problem here is my feet. When the mind is ready, the feet follow. I forced this one. It was a disaster as soon as I let it go."

And what was on Young's mind as he walked off the field? "I knew we were going to win -- this was my 116th start for the 49ers. You just keep making plays. We've done it so many times."

True enough. By almost any measure, the 49ers have been the NFL's most successful franchise for nearly two decades. This is the 16th straight season they've won at least 10 games. They've been to the playoffs in all but two of those years and have won five Super Bowls since 1981. In some years, they've simply had the best players. In others, they've lost key ones to injuries and still made it to the postseason. They've had seasons in which they've dominated the league start to finish, others in which they've struggled and sputtered but still managed to win big games.

The team has turned over several times in that span, but only once at quarterback, when Young took over for the legendary Joe Montana in 1991. The one factor that has never changed is the nearly mythic 49er culture -- a tradition of confidence, consistency, continuity, fiercely high standards, exceptional attention to detail and consummate preparation. That culture was first cultivated by Bill Walsh, who spent 10 years as coach beginning in 1979. Indeed, the culture's enduring strength has a lot to do with why the 49ers have continued to win in a season of nearly unprecedented change, loss of talent and front-office chaos that has left the franchise more fragile and vulnerable than it's been since Walsh's arrival.

Heading into the playoffs, the 49ers have built a record that's better than in seven of their last 15 seasons, including one of their Super Bowl years. Still, they've rarely won without a struggle this season, prompting debates inside and outside the locker room about whether fatal fissures are finally forming in the dynasty's foundation. What's plain is that, even with second-year coach Steve Mariucci commanding increasing respect, the burden of holding it all together lies more heavily than ever on Young's shoulders.

He is playing his 14th season in a sport in which the average longevity of a player is less than four years. Since succeeding Montana, Young has established himself as one of the best quarterbacks of all time -- a two-time MVP; the most accurate passer in NFL history; the leader in touchdown-interception ratio, and the second all-time rushing leader among quarterbacks after Randall Cunningham. He opened this season by passing for more than 300 yards in a record six consecutive games. Through Week 16, he had thrown for a league-leading 34 touchdowns and 3,882 yards (second only to Brett Favre's 4,059). The 49ers' offense has set four NFL records this season and stands among the top-ranked in nearly every category.

But Young will tell you that those numbers are misleading in a season marked by inconsistency and difficult losses, including the 49ers' fifth in a row to a struggling Green Bay, when Young was sacked nine times. "Losing is just horrid, sort of like having a hot fork stuck in you," Young says. "We're not used to it, and it puts us in a really weird place when it does happen. The most important thing is to gain perspective immediately and move on. I believe in expectation theory: When you don't live up to your expectations, there has to be cost. It's not about finger-pointing. The only way you can win repeatedly is to continue to pressure yourself to have these high expectations. Absolute accountability is a pretty good default mechanism for victory. Anything less than a Super Bowl here is a train wreck."

In pursuit of perfection, every step of Young's routine is carefully orchestrated, down to his ritual of bringing a container of dirt from the 49ers' home field to away games. He keeps the dirt on the sideline mixed with a little water, so he can rub his hands with it periodically. "When you play on artificial turf, it's just too sanitized," he explains. "I throw the ball better when I've got dirt on my hands."

Most of Young's preparation is cerebral, focused on totally absorbing the week's game plan. "When I was in law school, a lot of the tests were about memorization, learning facts," he says. "You can't memorize a game plan that way, because it has to be much deeper in your brain. The recall has to be subconscious and immediate. We're talking about an average of 20 or 30 runs a game and 70 or 80 pass plays. I have to know every formation for 11 positions. You can't be thinking in the middle of a play.

"And there's a totally new plan for every game. I start by taking it all down in my own handwriting. The rest of the week, I keep seeing those 75 pages in my head. When I'm driving home, I'll talk it all out loud to myself, because then you remember it better. There are weeks when I'm not getting it, that I'll literally walk around in my living room like I do in a scrimmage. I push myself all week, and on Friday night, I ask, 'Do I have it as well as I should? Have I lived up to my mental standard?' Once I can answer yes, I just wait to play."

***

Young returns to the tape. On the 49ers' second possession, he begins moving the team. On third-and-12 at the Saints 20, he rolls out and, just as he's about to release, his left arm is swatted from behind and he fumbles. New Orleans recovers, but Young still doesn't seem fazed. "It's just the rub of the green," he says. "Try that play again and nine times out of 10, we'll make it. If you're going to play quarterback, you've got to have a short memory. You can't carry around negative vibes. If you can't let things go quickly, you should probably choose another profession."

Five minutes later, the 49ers down 10-0, Young throws a ball three feet from any receiver, then fumbles for a second time. No negative thoughts, even at this stage? "Mistakes just happen," he says. "It's not like my vision was bad or I made bad reads. I'm seeing the field, and the coaches reinforce that when I come to the sidelines. We've got plenty of time left. If I was 20 years old, I might do something crazy on the next series, like try to run over someone. Nowadays, I don't do it. The risk is too high. The linemen are there to protect you. They want the ball out of your hands as soon as possible. You don't have to act tough. They don't admire you for running into someone, except maybe at the goal line."

While Young has suffered his share of injuries -- including five concussions as a Niner -- he insists that the fear of getting hurt is never a factor when he plays. "When I got hit in the head at the beginning of '97, I went through a battery of tests," he says. "The neurosurgeon was one of those rare doctors willing to take a position. He said, 'I'm telling you to go play football. If you get hit again, come see me.' " In 14 years, the longest Young has ever been out because of injury is five games.

"You can't be worried about these big guys coming at you, and you can't be watching them," he says. "When your eyes drop, you're going down. If you have a fear of getting hit, you can't have a passion for football. If you don't have that passion, sooner or later this game will take you down. My greatest fear is failing. I just want to get the job done."

One of the advantages of experience for Young is that the counterintuitive has become second nature. "The reason it's so hard to play quarterback in the NFL is that the game gets going so fast," he explains. "You tend to speed everything up. Pretty soon, you don't know what's happening. At this point in my career, that rarely happens anymore. I've learned to just slow the whole thing down. For me, the game has slowed dramatically over the years. It seems like there are far fewer defensive players on the field. There's a lot more grass out there. The field has gotten bigger."

As Walsh puts it, "Steve's making up for any loss of quickness and mobility with seasoning and good decision making. You can't expect that to continue indefinitely, of course, but so far it's balancing out."

The legacy of Walsh -- even 10 years after his departure -- is both palpable and explicit. "The apples haven't fallen very far from the tree," says Young. "It's not something ethereal. It's a total commitment to the details of football. Everything has filtered down. We still do things the same way we did when Walsh was here, whether it's our practices or our meetings or the way we travel."

It's a culture of expectation that's evident both on and off the field, even in small ways. When the 49ers travel, the players nearly all wear suits or sport jackets and ties. "You get a new guy coming on the plane dressed in thongs and a Hawaiian shirt, and the first question he's gonna be asked is 'Where's the concert?' " says Chris Doleman, the 14-year All-Pro defensive end. "We're going on a business trip, so it makes sense to act businesslike. When you dress a certain way and you carry yourself a certain way, that's part of mentally gearing up to perform in a certain way."

It's the same businesslike attitude that explains why, in a league full of preening players, the 49ers rarely taunt or trash talk their opponents, don't tend to get picked up for DWIs or fighting in bars, and generally keep low profiles. When the 49ers travel, each player is given his own hotel room -- a departure from most teams' practice of doubling players up. "One reason free agents choose to come here over other organizations," says Mariucci, "is that they know they're going to be treated in first-class fashion."

"There's a tradition that you discover as soon as you get here," says Ray Brown, a guard who signed on as a free agent in 1996 after 10 seasons with the Cardinals and Redskins. "You do everything with class and professionalism. It starts at the top and goes all the way down to the equipment manager and the cleaning lady."

To understand the 49er ethos, you need look no further than Finding the Winning Edge, an exhaustive 546-page encyclopedia that Walsh published this year for an audience that is unlikely to extend much beyond football coaches. It breaks down into 15-minute segments the 49ers practice schedule over a typical six-day week. It covers every aspect of running a pro football team from "acquiring talented players" and "preparing to win" to "strategies and tactics for dealing with a highly competitive adversary," "working with the media" and "overcoming the mental barriers to success." It even includes a dozen sample team lectures, among them one for staff secretaries.

Walsh's book also diagrams more than 50 plays and describes the West Coast offense that he invented. It has been so successful for the 49ers that scores of pro, college and even high school teams use it. The strategy emphasizes high-percentage, short-yardage passing. At a broader level, it relies on four key factors: preparation, planning, precision and poise. That means practicing for every conceivable contingency and planning ahead in as much detail as possible. It was Walsh, for example, who originated the practice of scripting the first 25 offensive plays before the start of each game, with specifically designated variations depending on field position and down.

It is no coincidence that the system has endured for the 49ers, given the lineage of the coaches who followed Walsh: George Seifert, who had been Walsh's defensive coordinator, and now Mariucci, who worked under Mike Holmgren at Green Bay. Holmgren is one of six current NFL head coaches who once coached or played for Walsh. Mike Shanahan has probably translated Walsh's players-first philosophy to his own club most efficiently, turning the Broncos into almost a carbon copy of the Niners.

When Mariucci took over, he was quick to pay homage to the 49er traditions. "Eighty-five percent of what we do will remain the same," he told the team in his opening speech. "Fifteen percent of it will change. Allow me to add my own flavor in some areas." The speech became something of a standing joke in the locker room. "If I ever do anything a little bit different," Mariucci explains, "the veterans will say, 'Hey is that part of the 15 percent?' "

"Continuity is probably the biggest factor in our success," says Bobb McKittrick, who has coached the offensive linemen for 20 years. "When most teams change head coaches, they change systems and start from scratch. Players come and go through a revolving door. In 20 years, we've basically had two quarterbacks -- Montana and Young -- and a core of veteran players. We might add or subtract a little, but the basic concept has remained the same."

Young worries about continuity -- particularly at the top of the organization. "The tradition here is very important," he says. "It really pulls you through all kinds of chaos. But that also works the other way. There is a trickle-down effect when there are so many transitions in ownership and management. We're sitting right now in an office of a guy I'm not even sure works here anymore. When you've got not just small distractions, but top-level stuff, it becomes a big distraction. That's when it becomes even more important to remember what the expectations are and live up to them."

***

When he turns back to the tape, Young is demonstrating what he's just been describing. Still scoreless, the 49ers get the ball on their own 26. On third-and-five near midfield, Young improvises by dumping off a short pass to his fullback, Terry Kirby, who breaks for a 19-yard gain. Young finally begins to find his groove. He hits Terrell Owens twice, first for 17 yards, then for an eight-yard touchdown. The image on the screen prompts the first flicker of a smile to cross Young's face.

"That's an aborted play that ends up awesome," he explains, describing the touchdown. "It's supposed to be a screen to Garrison Hearst, but he's covered. If I go to him, I might get intercepted. I end up throwing the other way to Terrell for a couple of yards. Then Terrell just says, 'I'm not ready to go down yet,' makes five guys miss, and he scores. That's classic 49ers football. It's not real complicated."

Three minutes later, the 49ers have the ball again. This time, Young spreads his passes around, marching the team downfield before connecting with Owens again for a second score. Suddenly, the 49ers lead 14-10. In less than nine minutes, the momentum has turned completely.

"If I ever doubted that would happen, I don't have to go very far back in the memory bank," Young says. "All I have to do is think back a few weeks to when we were down to Indianapolis 21-0 and came back to win."

It's an amply funded memory bank to which all the 49er veterans have access. Safety Tim McDonald is in his sixth year as a 49er, after playing his first six for the Cardinals. So what crossed his mind when the 49ers were down 21-0 to Indianapolis?

"That we would find a way to win the game," McDonald says. "That we couldn't walk off with a loss. The biggest difference here is belief, the belief that you can actually get it done. We're pretty battle-tested. In Arizona, we never won a championship, but here that's happened -- and more than once. In a lot of places, it's taboo even to talk about the playoffs. Here, you keep an eye on the big prize from Day One."

For Chris Dalman, the team's center, the shift occurred when he was drafted out of Stanford in 1993. "In college, I remember being 3–6, 3–8. Once you start losing, it's easy to accept losing. A loss now is like a death in the family. We've been in the playoffs all six years I've been here. There's a big difference between hoping to win and having the expectation of winning."

That mind-set has long meant that even in tough games, it's usually only a matter of time before the 49ers find their way. "You'll get a certain rhythm in a game and then it's like you're just on the open road," Young says. "You roll down the windows, do what you know you can do and suddenly you have four options, where earlier you had none."

Sure enough, on tape, Hearst opens the second half by going 81 yards for a touchdown on a pass from Young. The 49ers recover a fumble three plays later, and Young has them in the red zone. On first-and-goal, he bootlegs and rolls right to escape a blitz. With two New Orleans linemen hanging all over him, he manages to throw a perfect off-balance strike into the corner of the end zone. Greg Clark, the tight end, drops the ball.

"That could have been the best play of the game," Young says, "I would have remembered it for a long time -- getting away from the rush, staying on my feet, stopping and throwing the ball with two defenders right in my face. There has to be some place -- apart from all the media, the expectations, the pressure, the risks -- where you still just enjoy the game. That's what this play was."

On third-and-goal, Young senses the defense is trying to time the snap, reads the blitz perfectly and takes two quick steps back into the pocket. His receivers adjust seamlessly, and he threads the ball to Jerry Rice in the end zone, pushing the score to 28-13. It's Rice's first catch of the day.

"This is about taking control of the game," Young explains. "They're feeling forced to blitz and you can start to take advantage of it. We made mistakes early here, but now you can feel that there's a flow to it."

That doesn't mean Young derives much sustained pleasure from getting it right. "Even in great games, you say to yourself, 'Well, that's what you're supposed to do,' " he says. "You should take pleasure in a good win. Mariucci will say to me, 'That was a great game, enjoy it.' But it's hard when you set your standard so high."

In this instance, any satisfaction from a relatively easy win is tempered by Rice's postgame comments. "Maybe I'm spoiled," he tells reporters, "but this isn't 49ers football. Am I having a good time? Hell, no. Is that enough to get me thinking about retiring? Hell, yes." It's a complaint that Rice has made several times in his career -- nearly always when he feels the ball isn't being thrown his way enough. In this case, he's had just three catches. Young is not about to throw fuel on this fire. For him, the imperative is staying positive. He reframes the sudden controversy in terms of his own expectation theory.

"Jerry's upset that he's not getting the ball, but I don't see it as selfishness," Young insists. "He and I have a lot of history, and that helps at a time like this. I think Jerry's saying, 'I don't care about being double-covered. If you throw me the ball, we win.' If he was a different guy, with a different work ethic and a different standard of play, then you might treat it much differently. I just see this as Jerry's compulsiveness, his huge expectations for himself."

Sure enough, Rice backs off in the next few days, and another crisis seems to dissipate. A week later, Young opens the Monday night game against the Giants by throwing several times -- unsuccessfully -- to a double-covered Rice, prompting speculation that the receiver's tirade had its desired effect, possibly to the detriment of the team.

"As soon as I watched the film, I thought to myself, I'm gonna get nailed for that," Young admits. "I did force a couple of balls to him, but I would have forced them in 1988, too. The truth is, I tend to look for Jerry, even against the odds. And I'm gonna keep doing that."

Near the end of the win over the Giants, the 49ers' best defensive player, Bryant Young, breaks his leg in a freakish collision with teammate Ken Norton Jr. A beleaguered defense faces another gaping hole. Once again, Young manages to conjure an opportunity. "You definitely feel it when you lose a guy who was that dominant," he acknowledges. "But I've also seen it happen a number of times when that loss becomes a wake-up call. You get a higher effort, more intensity from everyone else on the field."

They got precisely that two weeks later in their next Monday night game -- a 35-13 thrashing of Detroit in which the defense excelled. But beating teams like the Lions or the Giants or the Saints is one thing. As the 49ers move into the playoffs in a season so marked by turmoil and crisis, is it even possible to think of this team prevailing in the postseason over Atlanta, or Green Bay, or Minnesota or Denver?

"Denver proved you can do it last year," Young says without a moment's hesitation. "When they went into the playoffs last year, they were just a wild-card road team and they came out with Super Bowl rings. Because of that, they walked differently and talked differently this year. In 1988, we were 6–5, and we ran the table. In 1992, we were dominant all season, and we lost in the playoffs. I don't even worry about our chances now. I'm just entirely focused on the next game. All the commentary is meaningless.

"There's an ebb and flow in football. That's the nature of it. It doesn't matter that we barely escaped several times this season. In the long run, maybe that's part of the championship formula. To go through some adversity and come back might be part of how you become a champion. The fact is, we're playing better football than we were a month ago. Regardless of how you do it, winning feeds on itself."

Two hours have passed since this tape session began, the sky is growing dark after a rainy Monday afternoon, and Young has had enough of talking about a game that's behind him. Tuesday's his day off, and he'll use it to try to relax -- maybe a movie with his girlfriend or a drive to the beach. He'll think as little as possible about football.

"I drive each game plan deep into my brain," Young says. "Now the key is to get it out, purge it, 'cause there's another one coming. On Wednesday, I have to start sinking in the new game plan."

It's hard to resist wondering about the toll this all takes. At the age of 37, deep into December, with an aching body, a sprained left knee and the pain of a season's worth of accumulated hits, isn't it tougher for Young to get up for what's still ahead?

"I look at it just the opposite way," Young replies. "Getting myself up isn't hard. My challenge is to keep even. Maybe the first game of the season you're all pumped up and it's too much. I'm better calmer. When I play at an even state, that's when I play best."

This article appears in the January 11, 1999 issue of ESPN The Magazine.