Montana, 49ers Make Short Work of Falcons

Joe Montana, like most of the great ones, is seldom satisfied.

Montana worked San Francisco’s short passing game to record-setting perfection Sunday in a 38-17 victory over the Atlanta Falcons, but he really didn’t like it.

“I never really feel comfortable with the short game,” Montana said after throwing five touchdown passes. “It’s hard to be patient at times. We always used to play like that but we had gotten away from it.

“I didn’t know I had thrown that many,” he said of his club-record 37 completions in 57 attempts for 429 yards. “I thought I had thrown in the 30s. If I didn’t throw any and we won, it would still be great.”

Montana’s touchdown passes covered 46 yards to Roger Craig, 14 to Wendell Tyler, 25 to Jerry Rice, 5 to John Frank and 32 to Dwight Clark.

Montana may not like it, but it’s just what Coach Bill Walsh wants.

“I felt more comfortable with what we did today,” Walsh said. “It’s hard to run on Atlanta, but I didn’t expect 50-some pass attempts. I expected 35 to 40. We went to the short game because that’s what Atlanta gave us. It was our most complete game in recent weeks.”

Craig had a club-record 12 receptions for 167 yards as the 49ers (3-2) bounced back from last week’s upset loss to New Orleans.

The teams combined for two NFL records by completing 68 of 102 attempts. The old attempts record was 100 set in last year’s Tampa Bay-Kansas City game, and the previous completion mark was 66 set in a game between Cincinnati and San Diego in 1982.

The Falcons (0-5) have lost 13 of their last 14 games dating back to last year.

The 49ers never trailed and put the game out of reach with two scores in a 20-second span of the fourth quarter that came just after reserve quarterback David Archer’s 29-yard touchdown run for Atlanta cut the lead to 17-10.

Montana immediately engineered a 67-yard drive in seven plays, hitting on 3 of 4 passes for 46 yards, including his longest pass of the day--the 25-yarder to Rice in the end zone with 11:46 to play.

On Atlanta’s first play after the kickoff, Dwaine Board sacked Archer for an 11-yard loss and forced a fumble that Todd Shell recovered on the Falcons’ five. Montana passed to Frank for the score on the next play and the 49ers had a 31-10 lead with 11:26 remaining.

Atlanta’s other touchdown came on a 20-yard run by Bob Holly, the team’s third quarterback in the game, in the final four minutes. Mick Luckhurst kicked a 45-yard field goal--his 11th in a row--in the second quarter.