49ers Owner Jed York: "Eddie Didn't Have a Salary Cap."

ORLANDO -- When Eddie DeBartolo Jr. was the 49ers owner, they went to five Super Bowls and won all five.

Since Jed York has been the 49ers owner, they've gone to three Super Bowls and lost all three. So he's not exactly his uncle.

This week at the NFL Annual Meeting, York made an impassioned case for why he shouldn't be compared to DeBartolo. Here's what York said.

Q: When you talked about what constituted a successful season, Eddie DeBartolo Jr. probably would say it's a disgrace to not win a Super Bowl. Is that a reflection of you growing into your own person as an owner?

YORK: "There's a difference between when he ran the club and with us. You guys brought up fitting Brock Purdy's contract extension under the salary cap. Eddie didn't have a salary cap. If we did'nt have a salary cap, Brandon Aiyuk's extension would have been done three weeks ago. You wouldn't let a guy like Arik Armstead go if you had no salary cap. Those are things that have changed, and so it's trying to accept the reality of what the NFL is, and knowing that there are only so many things that you can control when you have a fixed cap. The things that I can control are how our team functions in the community, what they represent -- I can have a direct impact on that. I can't necessarily have a direct impact on what play we call on fourth and three. Some of it is a maturing process, but it's hard when your standard was set in a relatively unachievable way of the 49ers that I grew up with. It's very very hard to do that unless you have the best quarterback in the league and you're relatively destined to be in the Super Bowl. I think we have a great quarterback, but I don't know that anybody is Patrick Mahomes. I don't know that anybody is what Tom Brady was in his prime. So you have to be able to build a franchise that can compete with those types of players. And that's what I'm proud of. I think our team has every opportunity to go win Super Bowls, and we'll never stop competing for that, but when I experienced the Super Bowl loss to Baltimore, I literally thought my life was going to end. The first time the 49ers ever lost a Super Bowl and it's just the big shameful thing, and then you take a step back and realize we were no. 2. If anybody else was no. 2, you'd keep working but you would be proud of your accomplishments, and it's trying to figure out that balance of we always want to keep pushing, but you can't shame yourself for being second. But you're always going to keep working. That's how I feel."

Q: Eddie seemed much more passionate and fiery. He mght have punched a wall.

YORK: "I think it's the right mentatliy to have -- we're going to do everything we can to win. But watching my kids cry after this loss, why can't I act like an 11-year old if my 11-year old is acting like an 11-year old? You have to be the leader and be able to say let's regroup. Me breaking my hand in that moment isn't going to make us win. So there's a maturity standpoint, but you have to figure out how do we regoup and know that you can't compete against the best quarterback unless you have an entire organization going in one direction, and it's a lot harder to do it when you have type of mentality, but I would put our team up against anybody. We have to find a way to get over that final hump. I think with our group, we can get over that hump. I think Brock Purdy has a chance to be one of those guys. He has played only two years. I think he has a chance to be at that level of truly truly great at the position, and he's still learning and growing, but we have to make sure that we support him as much as we can as an organization, and we don't have the luxury of having the second-highest-paid quarterback being our backup quarterback the way my uncle did. I wish we did. That would be fantastic. I would love to have a roster of starting quarterbacks that can be Pro Bowlers, but that's just not the way the league works now."

MY TAKE: York sure has a long list excuses for why he can't live up to his uncle and win a Super Bowl. And his uncle did win a Super Bowl when there was a salary cap -- that was 1994. So York doesn't even have his facts right.