49ers Super Bowl Champion Brent Jones’ Greatest Treasure Wasn’t Earned

Brent Jones is a three-time Super Bowl champion tight end, saying, “What a blessing! What a special thing! I was part of a Super Bowl Championship team!”

He was a fixture in the San Francisco 49ers dynasty – His 11-year career helped the franchise to a prolific run of not just three Super Bowl titles, but seven conference championship appearances. Brent says, “Playing the game at the highest level, consistent level. An organization that I think will go down in history as one of the most dominant teams -- if not the most dominant. Everybody in that building was committed to winning Super Bowls and nothing else.”

What was the common thread tied to those teams?  Brent explains, “One of the most amazing things about out team was our desire to compete and excel. It really was a culture that Bill Walsh had started building. One of the things that Bill use to say was, ‘our most powerful teams are when the players take over, when they police themselves, when the standard gets above just what the coaches expect’ – those three championship teams had all those hallmarks.”  

Those hallmarks included two Hall of Fame Quarterbacks!

“Steve Young didn’t skip a beat coming in for Joe Montana”, Brent remembers, “expectations from the quarterbacks – tremendously pressure-filled. To know exactly where they expected you to be and how they see the play. And obviously you can add to that, but in the end – they’re the general.”

The first of those three championships came down to the wire, when the 49ers beat the Cincinnati Bengals in their final possession of the fourth quarter in Super Bowl 23. Brent describes the winning drive, “We spent so much time focusing on how do you run a two-minute drill. What do you do? When do you get out of bounds? When do call a timeout? We practiced it every week and you never expect to be – hey, you got to go 92 yards in two and a half minutes to win a championship. We ran it meticulously and we were prepared to do it.”

It was the following Super Bowl, in 1990, during the 49ers blowout of the Denver Broncos, that this 4-time pro bowler experienced a childhood dream come true. Brent explains, “To catch a touchdown in a Super Bowl! As a young man watching games and to see the excitement, the pure joy, by the winning team and to able to experience that myself was something, but that touchdown in a Super Bowl stands out.”

To know Brent Jones is to know a man who treasures something more than just his football success, saying, “I’ve been a part of three Super Bowl Championship teams and I’ve seen so many teammates get up there and look around and say – ‘is that all there is?’ – It’s really empty at the top of the hill. And so the real fulfillment is that eternal fulfillment that you have by having Christ in your life.”

What does God’s saving grace mean to Brent Jones?  “Everything that I’ve been a part of has been about earning your way. Has been merit based. What can you point to? What championships have you won? How much money have you raised? The greatest thing about our Lord’s saving grace is – I haven’t done anything to earn it. In fact, I would argue that I and we all have done things to not deserve any of it.” Brent urges, “Account for the hope you have in Christ Jesus. Living the way Christ would have us live.”