January 9, 1988: The San Francisco 49ers were getting hammered by the Minnesota Vikings in the playoffs. Bill Walsh looked at Joe Montana and told him: “Joe, we’re going with Steve.” Steve Young entered and immediately gave San Francisco a spark. He ran for 72 yards and a touchdown and threw another TD, but it still wasn’t enough. Minnesota won 36–24.

After the game, Young and Montana sat together in the locker room on stools, leaning toward each other and talking quietly. A reporter asked Young what they were discussing. Young called it “quarterback talk.” Montana suggested they might have been trying to comfort each other. Young had just taken Montana’s place for a few minutes. But he still couldn’t take his job.

“I wanted out,” he said on In Depth with Graham Bensinger. “I was the one that had Leigh Steinberg go figure out how to get me out of here, like, I got to get out of here; I can’t take it.

“It’s just nuts, my career just going by, and I’m just standing here. And then when it got really right down to it, we had to make the decision. … It was the spring of 1991, and there was something about [it]. There’s something about it [that] I want to stay.”

Young came to the 49ers in 1987 via a trade with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He had already been deemed a bust by the latter team. And at San Francisco, he was met with Joe Montana. In 2016, Young told NFL Network that before the trade, then-head coach Bill Walsh had told him the veteran QB had undergone a second back surgery, implying that his time would soon be shortened. But Young saw a Montana who never seemed like he was injured.

There was never really a challenge to begin with, especially at that time: Montana would be the starter over Young any day. However, Walsh still pitted the two against each other.

“Well, our strength is at quarterback, but our problem is we have two,” Walsh said in 1988, during the preseason. “There’s a quarterback controversy developing. We’ll have to select between Steve Young and Joe Montana.”

Walsh split QB duties for 10 games that year before settling on Montana as his starter. Montana said in 2016 that the “musical chairs” strategy drove him nuts.

However, opportunity finally came in 1991, when Montana missed the season after injuring his elbow in the preseason.

Young started for the 49ers that year. It was a rocky experience, with him going 5-5 that year. But he finished the season with a league-best 101.8 passer rating. The 1992 season saw Young ball out, winning the NFL MVP Award and Offensive Player of the Year Award.

By 1993, the 49ers locker room developed a rift. Trade discussions began for Montana, who reportedly requested one. Ultimately, the 49ers traded Montana, finally giving Young the position he’d always wanted.

Young eventually gave the Niners one Super Bowl, and built a career worthy of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He was inducted there in 2005, and into San Francisco’s Hall of Fame in 2009, with Joe Montana. All because he patiently waited for the golden chance.

Today, that friction is in the past.

“I give Joe a ton of credit,” Young told NFL Network. “Because, despite all of the angst around it, we never had a cross word. We play tons of golf together, and I really supported him. When he was playing, I’d try to give him everything that I had.”