PHILADELPHIA — It has been 31 long years since the 49ers won their fifth and last Super Bowl championship. But the standard was still the standard.
Joe Montana’s eardrums might have been pounding from the deafening hostile Linc crowd and he would have looked up into the stands and asked his huddle: “Hey, isn’t that John Candy?” And Steve Young would never have flinched.
But these 49ers needed more than the ghosts of Montana and Young on Sunday.
These were the Eagles on the other side of the field and they were defending their Super Bowl championship, defending their football-crazed city, the Rocky statue, the Liberty Bell, all of it, from these intruders.

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