Montana
49ers Throwback: Montana Magic and Terrifying Taylor
V.J. Lovero-USA TODAY Sports
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On their way to a back-to-back and fourth Super Bowl championship, the San Francisco 49ers had a remarkable Monday Night comeback against division rival Los Angeles Rams. The Rams had beaten the Niners 13-12 earlier in Week 4 when kicker Mike Lansford made a game-winning field goal.
After that divisional loss, the 49ers won eight of their last nine games, including a 34-24 victory over the New York Giants, who won the NFC East with a 12-4 record and earned the second-best record in the NFC.
On a cool 56-degree night on December 11, 1989, the 9-4 Rams had a chance to close within one game of the division-leading 11-2 49ers. The Rams took the opening kick and an early 7-0 lead over the 49ers with a Greg Bell three-yard touchdown run. After forcing the 49ers to punt, Rams quarterback Jim Everett led the team down the field, finishing the drive with a four-yard touchdown pass to Damone Johnson, increasing their lead to 14-0.
LeRoy Irvin intercepted 49ers quarterback Joe Montana on their second drive, but the Rams settled for a Mike Lansford 25-yard field goal, increasing their lead to 17-0.
At the start of the second quarter, the 49ers finally got on the scoreboard with a 19-yard field goal by Mike Cofer, cutting the Rams’ lead to 17-3. Both teams traded punts, but the Rams drove down the field to try and increase their lead. However, with a botched field goal attempt, the 49ers took over at their two-yard line. Three plays later, Montana found wide receiver John Taylor on a short slant, and he took it for a 92-yard touchdown reception, shrinking the Rams’ lead to 17-10.
The 49ers had a chance to cut into the lead further before halftime, but Rams linebacker Kevin Green sacked Montana inside the Los Angeles 10, and Cofer missed a field goal as the first half expired.
Everett and the Rams came out of halftime, picking apart the 49er defense, finishing their drive with a 13-yard touchdown pass to running back Buford McGee, increasing the Rams’ lead to 24-10. The 49ers had another chance to cut into the lead as they drove inside Los Angeles’ 10-yard line, but Rams defensive back Michael Stewart picked off Montana.
Mike Lansford kicked a 22-yard field goal to increase the Rams’ lead to 27-10, and it seemed like they might sweep the 49ers for the season, but tonight was another “Montana Magic Moment.”
The 49ers followed the Rams’ score with a Montana seven-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Mike Wilson, cutting the home team’s lead to 27-17. The Rams regrouped and drove down the field, getting to the 49ers’ five-yard line until center Doug Smith had a bad exchange with Everett and San Francisco linebacker Matt Millen was “Johnny on the Spot,” recovering the fumble.
Montana then hooked up with Taylor on a slant route, where the third-year receiver took it for a 95-yard touchdown reception, cutting the Rams’ lead to 27-23.
The Rams, who had a chance to close in on the 49ers’ lead in the NFC West division and sweep them in the season, quickly saw their hopes disappear when the Niners recovered kick returner Ron Brown’s fumble at the L.A. 27.
With momentum on their side, the 49ers finished the drive and took a 30-27 lead after Roger Craig scored on a one-yard touchdown run. The Rams had a chance to tie the game or take the lead, but defensive lineman Pierce Holt sacked Everett on 3rd and 9.
With the Rams punting the ball back to the Niners, they ran out the clock and finalized the 30-27 49ers victory.
Montana finished the game with 458 yards passing, three touchdown passes, and two interceptions, while Taylor finished with 11 receptions, 286 yards receiving, and two receiving touchdowns.
The 49ers finished the season 14-2, winners of the NFC West with home-field advantage throughout the playoffs. They also averaged 34.9 points per game and allowed 7.2 points per game over the final five games of the season, including a Super Bowl record 55 points against the Denver Broncos’ number-one-ranked defense.
On July 1st, 2021, Taylor told 49ers beat writers he chose to win championships rather than go to another team and be their star receiver.
“My thing was always this: once I get into the league, all I wanted to do is win a championship,” Taylor said. “I did not have to be the main receiver. As long as we won the game, that is all I was worried about. As far as having the most passes that game, the most yardage that game, I let that handle itself. My main concern was at the end of the day: did we have a ‘W’ or an ‘L’?”
Despite not having a Hall of Fame career, the other 49er receiver not named Rice, Taylor, would be inducted into the Bay Area Hall of Fame, and fans would go to social media to react to Taylor’s induction.
“Finally, John Taylor gets the recognition he deserves! His induction into the Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame is a testament to his greatness. Congratulations, John!”
— Fadime Devaraj Madelen Daalmans (@FDaalmans) May 10, 2024
Well deserved, it’s About time 💯 Put some Respect on John Taylor name
— KNOWLEDGE924 (@wayzking24) May 8, 2024
All game stats were brought to you by Pro Football Reference.
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Written by:
Sports has been my first love since I was 12 years old. At one point I wanted to play football professionally. I started to take photography as a hobby in my teenage years but this was when I followed sports. I started to listen to sports radio, I found my true calling and it was to be a sports talk show host. Though I follow football and basketball, I started to have a new love of cultures around the world. After graduating from San Antonio College in 2018, I worked for the Castroville News Bulletin before going to A&M San Antonio to get my communications degree. Since I have written for the Ranger of San Antonio College, the News Bulletin and the Mesquite of Texas A&M San Antonio, I met many people and went to a lot of events. My major milestone was being in the press box of the San Antonio Commanders game for the Mesquite and being apart of a press conference with the Medina County Sheriff and other local news outlets. When I am not doing anything, I like to watch old cartoons on the DC Universe, play video games such as Mega Man and the Mass Effect series. I have also created Youtube channel called “Anger Management” with my friend Aaron Donnell.
One thing is clear: Ian Rapoport expects Brandon Aiyuk and Deebo Samuel to be on the San Francisco 49ers roster when the team takes the field in Week 1 of the 2024 season. At this point, most probably feel that way. The fact that both stayed with the team throughout the draft clearly signals that general manager John Lynch and head coach Kyle Shanahan intend to retain their two talented receivers—at least for one more season.
“Week 1 of 2024, it looks like they both will be [on the roster],” Rapoport told guest host Tom Pelissero on “The Rich Eisen Show.”
However, nothing in the NFL is ever certain.
“Now, look, crazy things can happen,” Rapoport continued. “Someone loses a star receiver, they decide to give the 49ers something of value for this
(Episode 335) — Brian Renick and Al Sacco do a pick-by-pick breakdown of every 49ers draft selection, what each prospect brings to the table, what their role will be this upcoming season, the themes of the 49ers draft class, which UDFAs could contribute, concerns with who they didn’t draft and more.
The audio for the show is embedded above. Remember to subscribe!
You can watch the show below.
You
The San Francisco 49ers have a new draft class. Some liked what the team did. Some did not. But that’s to be expected.
The 49ers draft class, along with undrafted rookie free agents will be preparing to go to rookie minicamp soon. They also have a handful of others they have invited to the minicamp as a tryout. So we hope to get plenty of news about the new rookies in the coming weeks.
For now, we’ve opened another edition of the 49ers Webzone Mailbag. Let’s jump in and take a look around.
What are your thoughts on getting “your guy” versus “draft value”? The internet has been reacting accordingly over Pearsall’s perceived draft value. – Justin
I think getting the player you want is more important than draft value. Especially when
Rumors swirled around the statuses of San Francisco 49ers wide receivers Brandon Aiyuk and Deebo Samuel leading up to the 2024 NFL Draft. In the end, both players remained on the roster, and the speculation surrounding the two star players dwindled.
While the 49ers repeatedly insisted that signing Aiyuk to a long-term deal remained the priority, there were reports of trade talks involving him and Samuel. After San Francisco drafted wide receiver Ricky Pearsall with the No. 31 overall pick, the Aiyuk trade rumors cooled off, and the Samuel ones heated up.
John Lynch on Aiyuk, Samuel
Montana
Montana Lottery Mega Millions, Big Sky Bonus results for May 8, 2026
The Montana Lottery offers multiple draw games for those aiming to win big.
Here’s a look at May 8, 2026, results for each game:
Winning Mega Millions numbers from May 8 drawing
37-47-49-51-58, Mega Ball: 16
Check Mega Millions payouts and previous drawings here.
Winning Big Sky Bonus numbers from May 8 drawing
09-14-18-20, Bonus: 16
Check Big Sky Bonus payouts and previous drawings here.
Winning Millionaire for Life numbers from May 8 drawing
14-16-21-43-51, Bonus: 03
Check Millionaire for Life payouts and previous drawings here.
Feeling lucky? Explore the latest lottery news & results
When are the Montana Lottery drawings held?
- Powerball: 8:59 p.m. MT on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday.
- Mega Millions: 9 p.m. MT on Tuesday and Friday.
- Lucky For Life: 8:38 p.m. MT daily.
- Lotto America: 9 p.m. MT on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday.
- Big Sky Bonus: 7:30 p.m. MT daily.
- Powerball Double Play: 8:59 p.m. MT on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday.
- Montana Cash: 8 p.m. MT on Wednesday and Saturday.
- Millionaire for Life: 9:15 p.m. MT daily.
Missed a draw? Peek at the past week’s winning numbers.
This results page was generated automatically using information from TinBu and a template written and reviewed by a Great Falls Tribune editor. You can send feedback using this form.
Montana
“It’s Life Alert or rent”: Montana trailer park tenants are on rent strike
Mobile home residents in Bozeman, Montana, say they’re being forced to choose between paying rent and paying medical costs.Courtesy of Jered McCafferty
35-year-old Benjamin Moore has lived in Mountain Meadows Mobile Home Park, outside Bozeman, Montana, since he was 17. This month, for the first time, he’s withholding his rent.
On May 1, Moore received a rent bill for $947, up 11 percent from the month before, and the second hike in nine months—the product of the park’s sale to an undisclosed buyer.
Moore hung a sign on his trailer that says “RENT STRIKE.” He and his neighbors in Mountain Meadows and nearby King Arthur Park, organized with the citywide group Bozeman Tenants United, are collectively withholding over $50,000 a month from their landlord.
Historically, trailer parks have been a relatively affordable housing option—a third of trailer park residents in America live below the poverty line. But on average, their cost of living has risen 45 percent over the past decade. By unionizing, the Bozeman trailer park tenants believe they might be able to fight the most recent rent hike—especially given the state of their housing.
For years, tenants say, the maintenance hasn’t been attended to: tree limbs hang perilously over trailers, and water shutoffs are a regular occurrence. “I cannot recall a time in the past 20 years where we had three straight months of water and power working all day, every day,” Moore said.
Shauna Thompson, another resident, calls the water “atrocious…like a Milky Way, like you’re drinking skim milk. It’s very nasty and turned off all the time, without any notice.” And tenants allege that they’ve experienced retribution for maintenance requests, punitive eviction attempts, and unsafe conditions.
“It’s really hard on people here,” Moore said. Some residents are “already paying their entire Social Security check for rent. It’s a very poor neighborhood. We’ve got old folks. We’ve got young families. We’ve got working-class people who can’t afford anything else.”
For the past four decades, a group called Oakland Properties has owned both trailer parks. When they learned about the sale, tenants were scared that their parks would be bulldozed, or that their rent would be increased even further, forcing them to move.
The tenants attempted to buy the parks themselves, but were decisively outbid. The winning bidder demanded an NDA. The transaction should be finalized next month, park owner Gary Oakland said, but residents still don’t know who’s going to own the land they live on.
This month’s rent hike, Oakland acknowledged, was “part and parcel” of the sale. But for tenants, it’s a catastrophe. On top of the $947 lot rent—more than double the national average—many residents also pay off home loans on their trailers, as well as insurance and utilities costs.
Oakland calls claims of broken utilities “nonsense”: “If it was such a bad place to live, why would the homes be selling for such high dollars?” he said. The rent strike, Oakland points out, is “just a group of people not paying their rent.”
Some people are rationing their medication to make ends meet, Moore said. “There’s one person who canceled Life Alert. It’s either Life Alert or rent, and if you don’t pay rent, they evict you and throw you in the streets.”
Tenant organizers across the nation have found a foothold in recent years organizing against individual landlords, and Bozeman’s tenant union, situated in one of the fastest-growing communities in the state, is no exception. Tenant unions from Los Angeles to Kansas City to New York have organized to win rent freezes, maintenance, and security in their homes.
Mobile home parks—increasingly private-equity-owned and uniquely at-risk in the face of climate disasters—are organizing, too: a group of trailer park residents in Columbia, Missouri, unionized in February. In Montana, as Rebecca Burns recently wrote for In These Times, mobile homes were already once a site of tenant organizing: buoyed by the state’s miners unions, the first Bozeman-area mobile home tenants’ union won an agreement with their landlord in 1978.
Oakland says park residents “have been terrorized by the union,” and plans to evict the strikers. The strikers say they’ve retained a lawyer and will fight to stay in their homes.
“I wish none of this was happening,” Moore said. “Your utilities should work. Your place should be safe. You should be able to get in and out of it. These are the absolute basics, and they just haven’t kept them up. And if you call them on it, they threaten you.”
Montana
Montana’s fastest man who started as a walk on
MISSOULA, Mt. — Karsen Beitz arrived at Montana with no scholarship offers, one remaining walk-on spot and no guarantee that his track career would last.
Now, the former Sentinel High School standout is one of the fastest athletes in Montana history.
Beitz, a Missoula native and junior sprinter for the Grizzlies, has turned an unlikely college opportunity into a record-setting career. He owns Montana’s 100-meter and 200-meter program records and enters next week’s Big Sky Conference Outdoor Championships as one of the top sprinters in the league.
Coming out of high school, Beitz was a football and track athlete without a Division I offer.
“I was upset about it,” Beitz said. “But at the same time, I was fine with just going to college and living a normal college life.”
That changed after conversations between Sentinel coach Dylan Reynolds and Montana coach Doug Fraley.
“You may not think he’s a D-I prospect based on his times,” Reynolds told Fraley, “but I’m just telling you, if he gets in the right program, he’s going to be a D-I runner.”
Fraley had one walk-on spot left on his roster. He brought Beitz into his office, talked with him and decided to take a chance.
“I liked him. We had a good conversation, so I decided to give him the last walk-on spot,” Fraley said. “I’m sure glad I did.”
Beitz became a Division I athlete in his hometown, but his first goal was modest. He wanted to prove he belonged and earn a scholarship.
He did that quickly.
As a freshman, Beitz placed at the Big Sky Outdoor Championships and helped Montana’s 4×100-meter relay reach the podium with a school-record performance.
“There was no doubt he earned that scholarship,” Fraley said.
Beitz continued to climb in 2025. He placed second in the 200 meters at the Big Sky indoor meet, but a hamstring injury kept him out of the outdoor championships.
“It sucked to deal with,” Beitz said. “But I’m young and still had two years left, so I shifted my mindset to how I could come out these next two years.”
He has not looked back.
Beitz won the 200 meters at the 2026 Big Sky indoor championships, the first individual conference title of his track career. His time of 21.09 seconds edged Idaho State’s Alex Conner by one-hundredth of a second.
“I think the best part about it was seeing how happy Doug was,” Beitz said. “He was jumping up and down, gave me a big hug. After last year, I knew what I was capable of, so to go out there and do it was amazing.”
Then came the outdoor season.
In April, Beitz broke Montana’s 58-year-old 200-meter record, running 20.55 seconds at the Pacific Coast Intercollegiate in Long Beach, California. The previous record had stood since 1968.
Two weeks later, he added the school’s wind-legal 100-meter record, running 10.25 seconds at the Bengal Invitational in Pocatello, Idaho. Which broke a 44-year-old program record and gave Beitz both sprint marks.
“He’s a really competitive guy, and he wants to be the best in the Big Sky,” Fraley said.
The records have not left Beitz satisfied. They have made him hungrier.
“You have all these goals and numbers in your mind,” Beitz said. “Then once you hit those numbers, you’re not satisfied. There’s just more numbers to chase.”
The next chase begins at the Big Sky Conference Outdoor Championships, scheduled for May 13-16 in Portland, Oregon.
After college, Beitz hopes to follow his mother’s footsteps and become a pharmacist. Maybe even the world’s fastest pharmacist.
“If I’m running around the hospital talking to doctors,” Beitz said, “I’ll do it pretty fast.”
From a walk-on few people noticed to a conference champion and school-record holder, Beitz has become Montana’s fastest man — and he is not done running.
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