49er Season Hopes Pivot on the Play of Man in the Middle

Every day, Michael Carter climbs onto the scales in the 49ers’ dressing room and prays for a reading.

The 49er scales only register up to 300 pounds. Anything more than that, a tilt light flashes and your fortune comes out reading “One at a time, please.”

For Michael Carter, 300 pounds is pretty much the thin line between too fat and just right. He’s on the cool side of the line these days, and he has become football’s latest marvel.

Carter plays nose tackle for the 49ers. He is 6-2 and about 290, but this is no novelty appliance, friends. In a 49er defense that has allowed zero touchdowns in the last 14 quarters, he is not only the big man, but the main man.

“He is a mutant,” defensive linemate John Harty says.

“The guy’s huge but he’s quick as a cat, like a defensive back,” 49er linebacker Riki Ellison says.

How does Carter do it?

The answer is so simple you’ll swat yourself in the forehead when you hear it.

“I try not to move like I’m big,” Carter says.

Watch him tonight against the Rams. He is No. 95. The 49ers defense was lousy the first seven weeks, when Carter was out with a hamstring pull. The 49ers’ defense has been lovely the last six weeks, since he has returned.

If you had to pinpoint one reason for the 49ers’ resurgence, this is it: Michael Carter.

He is a remarkable man.

Consider, for instance, what Carter has collected during the past 18 months: A degree (B.S. in sociology from SMU), a medal (shotput silver at the Olympic Games), a ring (Super Bowl), a wife (Sandra) and a daughter (2 months old). This is some sort of grand slam of personal achievement.

Last week he added to his list of honors the coveted Neutralizer of the Week award, given out by a stomach antacid company to “the NFL player who most effectively neutralizes the opposition.”

The rave reviews are rolling in like fog over the big red bridge.

“He may be the best of all time at his position, and undoubtedly the best in the league now,” 49er Coach Bill Walsh says. “He’s Hall of Fame material.”

“He’s not human,” Roger Craig, 49er running back, says.

But he is. He’s just a nice kid from Dallas, with a good sense of humor, a round, honest, baby face, and some kind of smoldering inner fire. Carter doesn’t drink, smoke or swear, but on the field he is a man possessed.

“He’s in his own little game,” Ellison says.

As a lean teen-ager, Carter clipped some photos out of a magazine and taught himself to put the shot. Splitting his time and energy between track and football, he excelled at both. All-American second team in football, the Olympic silver medalist in the shot.

The NFL experts doubted his commitment to their religion, so he was drafted 121st overall. Last year as a rookie, he took a few games to learn the ropes, but was cranking pretty good by Super Bowl time.

This year he got hurt early, but has come back and is hurting others. He is a 300-pounder who dances through offensive lines like Gregory Hines in cleats.

Who knows how he does it? Maybe it’s the clean living. Michael tried drinking a beer once, after a college track meet.

“I was thirsty and there was nothing else to drink,” he says. He squinches up his face. “How can anyone drink that stuff?”

At team parties, Carter drinks orange juice or milk, and his teammates call him a mama’s boy. He laughs.

“I’ll never have a hangover,” he says.

Nor will he ever experience any of the cute side effects of steroids, those muscle builders used by maybe 99% of the world-class weight-event performers in track and field.

“I don’t see how people can take that stuff,” Carter says. “You look at yourself in the mirror later, maybe 20 years after winning, and how are you going to appreciate that? You cheated . Did you do it, or did the steroids?”

See how simple life is for Michael Carter? You don’t juice up in training, even though it could make you a gold medalist, because it’s cheating. You don’t drink, smoke or do drugs, because they’re bad for you.

You don’t eat a dozen glazed doughnuts as a midnight snack anymore because 315 pounds is great for a shotputter, but you’re a football player now and you need to be lean and mean.

“I was eating up a storm before the Olympics,” Carter says, wistfully.

You work hard, you study film, you learn your position, because if you’re strong and quick and smart, too, you’re going to kick some butt.

On the field, opponents curse you and talk to you and threaten you, but you keep your mouth shut. You keep the fury inside, under control.

When you sack a quarterback, once you’ve got him, you set him down easy. A sack is a sack.

You’re playing maybe the most physically demanding position on the field, sometimes you can barely make it to the locker room after the game. You let your wife drive home.

But you enjoy the action. You smile a lot. When you know what you’re doing, it’s simple. It’s fun.

“It’s nothing but a big game out there,” Michael Carter says.