Overall Winner

Song - Overall Winner

Artist(s) - "John Epping" (Gerhard Narholz)

Released - 1988

Primetime Usage - 1989

Contained on - SON 290 (Leaders Vol. 1), Sonoton SCD 14 (Leaders 1&2)

Featured Highlight - *EDIT* - Bills @ Dolphins, 1989


The 1989 San Francisco 49ers were arguably the greatest NFL team of the modern era.  They went 14-2, 10 of their 14 wins were by double digits, and they won their three playoff games by an average score of 42-9.  For a team that dominant, a song with the title "Overall Winner" is appropriate.  Gerhard Narholz's synth-filled fanfare is bright & loud and perfectly fits a champion from the 1980s.  It's also easily accessible to those that want to listen thanks to Sonoton's online service (linked above).  Overall Winner wasn't played that much on NFL Primetime—2 highlights that I know of early in the '89 season—but the games that used it were pretty big ones.  One was a Bills/Dolphins showdown from Week 1, while the other—shown below—featured the aforementioned 49ers travelling to Veterans Stadium to take on an Eagles team that was considered one of their chief NFC-title threats.  What followed was perhaps the finest game of Joe Montana's (or anyone else's) career:  428 yards and 5 TD passes on just 34 attempts despite being sacked 8 times and being hit several more.  Grab a snack or something, because this entertaining highlight is lengthy even for the 28-team era.

*EDIT* - The NFL copyright blocked the 49ers/Eagles video because of a 13-second play match (Rice's last touchdown, specifically).  This is the first time this sort of thing has happened to one of my videos in ≈40 posts, so hopefully it won't happen again.  Here's the aforementioned Buffalo/Miami matchup from Week 1 as a replacement.