Ronnie Lott is a Pro Football and College Hall of Fame defensive back whose career was so legendary it’s difficult to begin listing his accomplishments.
Lott is four-time Super Bowl champion (all with the San Francisco 49ers) and 10-time Pro Bowler. His mark on the game of football is indelible to the point where he has a trophy named after him.
The Lott IMPACT Award is handed out annually to the college football defensive IMPACT player of the year. IMPACT stands for many of the traits Lott brought to the game: Integrity, Maturity, Performance, Academics, Community, and Tenacity.
With the 49ers back in the Super Bowl, Lott sat down with Steve Serby of the New York Post this week and divulged some stories about his classic battles with the New York Giants.
Lott had a famous 1990 confrontation with Giants’ quarterback Phil Simms after the Niners aced out the Giants, 7-3, on Monday Night Football. A misconception about Simms’ opinion of him falsely conveyed by ex-Giant Jim Burt started it all.
“He didn’t understand why I decided to get so ballistic,” Lott said of the postgame face-to-face confrontation with Simms. “I threw a tantrum towards him. I didn’t know that Phil felt that way about me, but as we all learned in life, Phil didn’t say that, it was Jim Burt being Jim Burt getting me fired up.”
“He (Simms) looked at me, ‘What the heck are you doing (laugh)? Why are you acting like this?’ But the great thing that I love is that after the whole incident, he comes into the locker room and said to me, ‘I never would have said anything.’ For him to walk in our locker room, after that game, and then say what he said, showed me how great a human being he is.”
Later that season, the Giants would beat the 49ers, 15-13, in the NFC Championship Game. Simms did not play in that game as he was sidelined by a broken bone in his foot.
Serby also asked Lott about the famous 1986 play in which Giants tight end Mark Bavaro took him and several of his teammates for a ride at Candlestick Park.
“I think of being pulled on a slip and slide,” Lott said of what is was like to try to tackle Bavaro. “I had to redeem myself and had to hit him like George Foreman.”
Lott also spoke about Lawrence Taylor, who he said makes him feel 22 every time they meet. He also described what is was like to prepare for those tough Giants teams of the 1980s.
“The game was gonna be a fourth-quarter game. You want to try to beat ’em before you got into the fourth quarter. Coach [Bill] Parcells and his staff were really good at managing time in the fourth quarter. They were very disciplined about how to win games in the fourth quarter,” he said.
Lott is right. The Giants played the 49ers in the postseason five times during Lott’s tenure in San Fran with the Giants winning three. So much for the ‘Team of the 80s.”
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