Not hardly. Deion Sanders–‘Niner defensive back, Cincinnati Reds’ center fielder (in nonstrike weeks), shuck ’n’ jive boxer, New Jack hip-hopper and, of course, Mr. P-R-I-M-E T-I-M-E, his own serf–are very much alive, flourishing and absolutely lighting up the city by the bay. He’s there by his own hand. For months he peddled his considerable wares on the free-agent market, then chose the 49ers-a staid, conservative organization not known for sass and flash. The ‘Niner team is known for winning, though. Signing Sanders was the extra ingredient, the new adrenaline rush, aimed at giving the team a shot at toppling the Dallas Cowboys, the Super Bowl champions. Their next annual Game of the Millennium: Nov. 13 in cozy Candlestick Park.
Deion is a man of many faces. But bust through the rope necklaces, dazzling shades and Jeff-curled verbiage, and Sanders is the most versatile, compelling and maybe most valuable player in all of football. Unfold those do-rags from the loud, braying image, and he is a nonsmoking, nondrinking homebody who’d rather spend a quiet evening with his wife, Carolyn, and his two young children than prance into the hottest club. “When the 49ers signed me, they got D. L. Sanders, nobody else. What that mean is I’m goin’ to be me,” says D. L. Sanders.
And what does that mean:
Showing up for his first 49er game in plaid purple and green vest and pants suit, green blazer, matching velvet and patent-leather loafers and more accessorial gold than the original 49ers ever discovered in them thar’ hills.
Celebrating his very first 49er start at right corner with a game-saving, 74-yard interception return for a touchdown against the New Orleans Saints. He memorialized his return to Atlanta–where he used to perform dual duty with the Falcons and the baseball Braves–by starting a fistfight in the open field with his former roommate Andre Rison. Moments later he intercepted another pass for another touchdown return, this one over 98 yards, the happiest part of which he spent yammering and high-stepping past the humiliated Falcons’ bench. “That was like a movie script,” says 49er center Jesse Sapolu. “The guy couldn’t possibly do that. But he did. I looked over and our whole team had left the bench screaming for Prime Time.”
“Goddam. I told him [Rison]. This is my house,” Sanders ranted about Atlanta’s Georgia Dome. “I built this place. . . It will always be my house.”
“It’s all pure, total humor,” he says. “If people gonna be so stale, they can’t get a kick out of me? Too bad. I don’t worry about the image or what people think anymore. I don’t want to rewind the tape. But just talk to my teammates. It ain’t no fun when a guy be high-steppin’ against you. It’s only fun when he high-steppin’ with you.”
Dim all the spotlights on Deion and you still get Liberace in liniment. But also the most dangerous defensive football player alive, the best kick returner, a fellow who can turn games around and inspire teams to play high above their norm, all by himself. In 1993 the Falcons were 0-5 before Sanders finished his season with the Braves and immediately switched to football. Whooosh! The Falcons won six of their next eight. How good was he? In two remarkable upset victories, Sanders grabbed two passes away from the 49ers great receiver Jerry Rice and shut down Cowboy star Michael Irvin, a terrific player who has slaughtered the 49ers in crucial games.
Fast-forward to this fall. After much conversation regarding team “chemistry"would the team stomach Deion’s act?–the 49ers welcomed Sanders with open arms. “We’d gotten too stodgy. We needed his spark,” says 49er president Carmen Policy. “When you have a chance to get the absolute best, your egos can handle it,” says George Seifert, 49ers coach.
Even Deion’s. He passed up more lucrative offers ($17 million over four years) to sign an estimated $1.25 million, one year deal with the ‘Niners. He wanted the best shot at the Super Bowl. “And trust me, the last thing I crave now is finances,” says Deion. But this best friend and now neighbor of the legendary rap-scallion himself, Hammer, may be hammering another tune come winter. Then–armed with his all-star credentials, legitimacy as a terrific team guy and perhaps even a Super Bowl ring–the man could be worth oh, about twelve trillion in, uh, “finances” as a negotiating free agent.
Even the Atlanta fisticuffs seem a mere blip on the Deion-o-sphere. “Oh, no, I’ve lost control of this one,” Seffert remembers thinking at the time. But when his new guy took off with yet another ‘pick –joek talk for interception–the straitlaced Seffert had to suppress a rare smile. Seffert has a zoology degree from college (the University of Utah) and coached in the Ivy League (Cornell), but he is California mellow-speak through and through. “Deion has a sense of place and time in his life. That’s just him, the future of him. He has the great karma.”
Among other things. He’s a “calculating sucker,” quarterback Steve Young says of Deion. “He knows when it’s time [for Prime] and when it’s not. He’s not like a guy who takes a team’s personality away. He understands a team.”
Don’t stop the presses. He’s a team player. And a football/baseball player Who got his Prime Time nickname in high school by dunking a basketball, a remarkable athlete who in college at Florida State competed for the NCAA team championship in football, baseball and track. Sanders could always combine the play with the work. But those teams never reached their goals, and his dream remains a Super Bowl trophy.
In San Francisco, Deion knew what he was coming to: a team so good, “they’d be 12-4 without me,” he says, “an all-star team where I don’t have to be the focal point. Look, I know they been winning around here for a long time so I don’t say that much. But I’ll tell anyone: when you just clock in and clock out, when it’s all business, you’re missing a big part of the game. You got to lighten it up and entertain the people. You got to be there for one another, recognize the joy and the tim.”
And the self. “Me and the 49ers? It’s like someone is playing a game of tag and Carl Lewis moves into the neighborhood.” And that Carl, he owns some gold chains, too.
Ultimately, if Sanders helps his new tag-mates defeat the Cowboys, that neighborhood should look precisely like his dream world. Ground zero of the Super Bowl.
