Miami — It was halftime in San Francisco, and the home team was leading, 27-7, and the players were dividing up their anticipated playoff swag. It wouldn’t be much. Next week the athletes would be home, in the NFL championship game. They’d earn more. They were laughing and joking.
The visitors, with their 17-point deficit, were sullen. And then they were angry and raging. Then they were defiant and spitting fire.
“We could hear the (so-and-sos) through the wall of the locker room,” one of the visitors told many times through the years.