Monday 30 January 2017 11:26, UK
The iconic San Francisco 49ers are among the most recognisable teams in the world of sport - and for good reason.
They are not only up there with the joint-second most Super Bowl victories of all time, but they have the best conversion rate of all the franchises that have won it more than once at 83 per cent, having won five out of their six big games.
Some of the greatest players in NFL history have graced the 49ers with their talents. Take quarterback Joe Montana for instance: he won a record three Super Bowl MVPs and two NFL MVPs while steering San Francisco through its most successful period to date in the 1980s.
Jerry Rice, perhaps the greatest wide receiver of all time, combined with Montana to execute a raft of game-winning catches over the years and came away with multiple awards of his own.
The Bay Area was synonymous with football during that golden era and it is one of the reasons why the sport is so big today.
The 49ers, who have been members of the NFL since 1950, had an incredible run in the second half of the 20th century when they only failed to make the play-offs four times between the 1981 and 2002 seasons.
One of the NFL's best quarterbacks, Colin Kaepernick, was voted by his team-mates as the most influential player in the franchise in 2016, so a future without him after a poor 2016, however, is almost unthinkable.
