Super Bowl Pipeline? 6 Quarterbacks Who Took Snaps for the 49ers AND Chiefs … and Their Rookie Cards!

Between them, the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers are entrenched in Super Bowl history … the Chiefs as the first AFL team to play in the Big Game, and the Niners as the dominant team of the 1980s.

And then, of course, there is their head-to-head match-up in Super Bowl LIV.

But did you know there is another tie between the two storied franchises? On that runs right through the heart of the teams?

Well, there is, and it’s manifested in the six men who have taken snaps with both teams — many of them chained together over the course of a decade or so.

Here, then, are the quarterbacks who have played for both the 49ers and the Chiefs, along with one rookie card each.

1979 Topps Steve DeBerg (#77)

DeBerg had a rocky road in the NFL but eventually built himself into a solid quarterback, even if he never was a true superstar.

Selected in the 10th round of the 1977 NFL Draft by the Dallas Cowboys, DeBerg was waived before the season. He then caught on with the San Francisco 49ers’ practice squad that September.

Partway through the 1978 season, DeBerg had nabbed the starting job for the lowly Niners. As the first QB to guide Bill Walsh‘s West Coast Offense, DeBerg led the NFL in attempts and completions.

Alas, San Fran drafted Joe Montana that year, and DeBerg was on the bench by the midway point in 1980.

Before the 1981 season, the Broncos traded for DeBerg. In three seasons with Denver, he backed up Craig Morton and John Elway before heading to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the spring of 1984.

In Tampa, DeBerg found solid playing time, serving as the primary starter in three of four seasons for the franchise that drafted Vinny Testaverde and Steve Young as he came in the door.

DeBerg finally landed in Kansas City in March 1988, and he started 52 games over his four seasons in Arrowhead. The 1990 and 1991 seasons both saw the Chiefs make the playoffs.

At 38, DeBerg was on the move again for the 1992 season, heading back to Tampa, then to the Miami Dolphins before hanging up his cleats in 1993.

Oh … he also came back, to the Atlanta Falcons, for an eight-game stint in 1998.

All told, DeBerg passed for more than 34,000 yards and 196 TDs … not bad for a dude that couldn’t seem to put down roots.

His 1981 Topps football card has enjoyed varying degrees of popularity over the decades, but can generally be found for a buck or so, raw, today. It shows a young DeBerg at the beginning of his NFL journey, with the Niners.

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1981 Topps Joe Montana (#216)

Montana’s path through the NFL was a bit more straightforward than DeBerg’s.

Though he fell all the way to the third round in the 1979 NFL Draft, Montana was sort of handpicked by Walsh coming out of Notre Dame.

“The Genius” thought Montana would be the perfect dude to implement the West Coast in full, and he moved the youngster up to supplant DeBerg midway through the 1980 season.

By 1981, Montana and Walsh had the Niners winning their first Super Bowl.

They did it again 1984, 1988, and 1989.

In 1987, though, Walsh traded with the Bucs to pick up Steve Young, and the young buck was chomping at the bit for playing time. He pushed, and Montana squirmed a little, for six full seasons.

Finally, the Niners traded Montana to the Chiefs before the 1993 season.

Battling injuries and age (37) by that point, Montana managed just 25 starts in two campaigns with the Chiefs before announcing his retirement. He did get K.C. into the playoffs both years, though.

By that time, Montana’s legend had been sealed, and his 1981 Topps rookie card had long been a driving force in the hobby.

In fact, it was the first RC of an active football player to really move the needle at all, and it helped make the gridiron a legitimate hotbed for collectors.

Today, the Montana rookie ranges from under $100 to thousands depending on gradedness and condition.

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1989 Topps Traded Bob Gagliano (#38T)

Gagliano’s career doesn’t look quite as shiny as the other guys on this list, but he’s an interesting case, nonetheless.

Drafted by the Chiefs in the 12th round in 1982, Gagliano made it into one game in each of 1982 and 1983.

From there, he jumped over to the Denver Gold of the USFL in 1984 and 1985, evidently putting up a good enough showing to nab some NFL attention when the upstart league folded.

In 1987, he landed with the 49ers, where he appeared in three games and — amazingly, considering the presence of Montana and Young — started one.

Gagliano was out of the league again in 1988 but caught on with the Detroit Lions in 1989, starting a career-high seven games (among 11 appearances).

That was enough to finally earn him a rookie card, number 38T in the 1989 Topps Traded set.

Gagliano would spend one more season in Detroit before winding up his career with the San Diego Chargers in 1991 and 1992.

Not surprisingly, his Topps RC can be had for a song most of the time today.

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1992 Playoff Steve Bono (#42)

A sixth-round pick in the 1985 NFL Draft, Bono spent four years coming off the bench for the Minnesota Vikings and Pittsburgh Steelers to start his career.

And, by “coming off the bench,” I mean he appeared in a total of ten games those four seasons, though he did start three in 1987 with the Steelers.

Bono landed in San Fran in 1989, and it was more of the same. He did get a starting shot in 1991, though, and led the Niners to a stout 5-1 record in six games.

That got Bono into all 16 games in 1992 and eight in 1993 as he became Young’s primary backup.

In 1994, though, Bono followed Montana to the Chiefs, and he inherited the starting role once Superstar rode off into the sunset.

K.C. won the AFC West in 1995 but bowed out to the Indianapolis Colts in the first round of the playoffs.

After the team fell to 8-5 in 1996, Bono was gone to the Green Bay Packers, and back on the bench (behind Brett Favre).

He finished up by turning in one year each for the St. Louis Rams and Carolina Panthers.

Owing to his spotty early career, Bono didn’t score a rookie card until 1992. By that time, the hobby was booming, and everyone with a printing press was issuing cards.

The Playoff issue shows up here because it was different and looks very retro, sort of majestic, with Bono in color relief against a black and white background.

Expect to pay not much for this RC from the heart of the junk wax era.

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1993 Wild Card Elvis Grbac (#7)

Say what you will about Elvis Grbac … he has the coolest name on this list!

In terms of his career, Grbac started NFL life as the Niners’ eighth-round pick in 1994 and spent the next three years coming off the bench.

He followed Bono’s trail to Kansas City, though, becoming the Chiefs’ starting quarterback in 1997.

Grbac suffered an injury in the ninth game that season and had to give way to Rich Gannon for the next six before starting the finale.

Between the two of them, the Chiefs’ QBs piled up a 13-3 record, then Grbac drew the starting assignment against the Denver Broncos … the Chiefs lost.

Grbac was a part-time starter in 1998, then took the reins again full-time in 1999 and 2000 when Gannon headed to the Oakland Raiders.

That last season in K.C. was Grbac’s best, statistically, and he parlayed his 4100+ yards into a five-year free agent deal with the Baltimore Ravens.

After a disappointing 2001 in Baltimore, though, the Ravens released Grbac, and he was done.

Like Bono, Grbac debuted on cardboard at the peak of the glossy, hyped-up flood in the early 1990s, so there are plenty of choices in rookie cards.

Wild Card makes the cut here because it’s an apt time capsule and adds some built-in variety since you can collect the various denominations.

The good news is, none of them should break the bank.

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2005 Bowman Alex Smith (#114)

Of all the men on this list, Alex Smith was easily the most ballyhooed coming out of college.

But that’s as expected for the number one overall pick, a status Smith attained in 2005 when the then-lowly 49ers picked him to be their franchise cornerstone.

For the most part, Smith made steady progress through his first several years in the leagues, save for a 2008 campaign lost to a shoulder injury.

By 2011, he had San Fran at 13-3 and in the playoffs, and nearly the Super Bowl.

The next season, a concussion for Smith opened the door to playing time for Colin Kaepernik, who led coach Jim Harbaugh‘s charges to within three points of a Super Bowl win.

The 49ers traded Smith to the Chiefs that off-season, and was a consistent star performer over five years in Kansas City.

With the arrival of Patrick Mahomes in K.C., though, Smith became expendable, and the Chiefs traded him to the Washington Redskins before the 2018 season.

In Washington, Smith suffered a devastating compound fracture to his leg in Week 11 of the 2018 season and spent the rest of that year and all of 2019 undergoing surgeries and rehab in his recovery attempt.

As the only fully contemporary player on our list, Smith gets a Bowman RC here since the brand has pretty much become synonymous with “rookie card.”

Even so, his 2005 Bowman is a good-looking issue that you can pick up — depending on which parallel you want — for a couple bucks or so.

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