49ers legend Joe Montana only follows one former teammate on Instagram

3-4 minutes 1/20/2024 San Francisco 49ers legend Joe Montana has 219,000 followers on Instagram. In return, though, he follows just 38 accounts — and it’s an odd assortment to be sure. The first, and biggest, category that the quarterback, now 67, follows are endorsements.

If you’ve ever seen Montana’s social media presence, this is no surprise. You’d be hard-pressed to find a single post that isn’t an ad of some kind. His last four posts are two ads for Pfizer, a promo for his “new Joe Montana Collection 16-year-old whiskey” and a video with Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow for Guinness.

Among his endorsement follows are AT&T, personalized celebrity message service Cameo, Excel Sports Management and Here, a vacation rental investment company that announced it was shutting down on Jan. 3. Montana’s list of player follows is very selective.

He follows just five people who once played for the 49ers: Aldon Smith, Patrick Willis, Vernon Davis, Colin Kaepernick and Jerry Rice. Montana follows zero current Niners, but he does follow quarterbacks Russell Wilson, Tom Brady and the aforementioned Burrow, likely due to their Guinness advertisement. The real fun comes with Montana’s pop culture interests.

He added just two musicians to his feed, and they’re an unexpected duo: Blake Shelton and Bruno Mars. As far as we can tell, Montana has never done an endorsement collaboration with either man. He just loves their music.

Old social media posts show Montana with Mars at a show in 2014 (“At Bruno Mars Concert in SF last week!” Montana wrote on Facebook. “He rocked!”), and a 2013 tweet to Shelton, seemingly unprompted. Montana keeps his personal life mostly off social media.

He does follow kids Nick and Elizabeth, and an old jewelry account run by wife Jennifer Montana. There are a handful of private accounts on his follow list too, some of whom appear to be social media consultants who may actually be the people posting whiskey ads to Montana’s page. After all, it’s hard to imagine Montana is the one tagging companies and collecting social media assets for promotion.

He’s not the only 49ers legend to run his account basically for promotions only. Steve Young, who doesn’t follow Montana or vice versa, follows just 24 accounts. Many are people who share the Young last name, but he too doesn’t follow a single current San Francisco player.

If any 2024 Niners want to join the exclusive club followed by Montana and Young, they’ll need to win Saturday night to continue their march to the Super Bowl. The 49ers kick off against Jordan Love’s Green Bay Packers at 5:15 p. m.

Saturday in Santa Clara. .