49ers Lead, 17-0, Then Fall to the Giants, 21-17

There aren’t many good football players from North Dakota. For that matter, there aren’t many bad football players from North Dakota. But last year, the New York Giants drafted one of the beauties from one of the smallest states in the union.

He is wide receiver Stacy Robinson, who won a lot of sprint championships for a Division II power, North Dakota State, and who Monday night made sure that the Giants won one of the big games of the year.

Robinson did this by drifting behind the San Francisco 49ers for two big second-half passes from quarterback Phil Simms as the Giants knocked down the 49ers, 21-17, turning around a game they were losing at halftime, 17-0.

“It was a very tough loss, the toughest I’ve had since I’ve been with the 49ers,” Coach Bill Walsh said. “ They beat us with (Robinson’s) two big plays.”

Simms’ hard-to-believe 21-point rally in the third quarter came in a rush on the Giants’ first three series after 49er quarterback Joe Montana, playing typical short-play football, had enabled the 49ers to dominate the first half.

When they blew what appeared to be an insurmountable lead, the 49ers may have blown their best chance to pressure the Rams in the NFC West. The Rams are 9-4, and San Francisco is 7-5-1.

The Giants, meanwhile, used their decisive third quarter as a springboard to a tie for first in the NFC East with the Washington Redskins, who are also 11-2. Both have clinched places in the playoffs.

“We’re shocked, stunned, upset, disturbed, exasperated,” Walsh said after the turnaround.

The 49ers had played their game in the first half, burying the Giants under a flurry of short passes, short runs, and touchdowns by wide receiver Jerry Rice.

But the Giants descended on them with sudden fury in the third quarter. After Simms had thrown 18 yards into the end zone to running back Joe Morris for the Giants’ first touchdown, it was Robinson who got behind 49er rookie cornerback Tim McKyer to catch Simms’ 34-yard pass in the end zone to pare San Francisco’s lead to 17-14.

And it was Robinson who got behind 49er rookie cornerback Don Griffin to field Simms’ next 49-yard bomb at the 1-yard line, setting up Ottis Anderson’s easy game-winning touchdown.

The Giants were a study in futility in quarters one, two and four, gaining only two yards with their famous ground game in the first half and failing to make a first down in the last period.

In between, what happened?

“My guys are tough, they don’t quit,” Giant Coach Bill Parcells said.

That’s part of it. But mainly, the 49ers used up too many of their resources putting a collar on Morris, the Giants’ great 5-foot-7 running back, and didn’t get enough pressure on Simms.

Walsh used his linebackers and even, occasionally, his safeties to stop Morris at the line of scrimmage, and, statistically, the result was that they held him to 14 yards in 13 carries.

“We knew we had to hammer Morris,” 49er safety Carlton Williamson said. “But we paid a big price for it.”

Too big a price.

Logically enough, the 49ers were gambling that Simms couldn’t hurt them much throwing the ball.

The NFL’s book on Simms is that he can be defensed on passing downs--that he is only effective when opponents expect the Giants to run the ball.

By most NFC East scouts, Simms is called the least effective quarterback on any National Football League contender.

And in the first quarter, particularly, Simms bore out the reasoning of his critics. Of his first 10 passes, thrown into a defense that was basically letting him throw, two were intercepted.

But in the third quarter, astonishingly, Simms changed colors to become as accurate as any passer in the league.

When the 49ers, after halftime, stuck wholeheartedly to their successful first-half game plan--putting a collar around Morris and allowing Simms to throw it if he wished--he threw it and beat them.

There was one other San Francisco problem in the third quarter. The 49ers had to come off Simms even more than they had wished to in order to take care of Giant tight end Mark Bavaro, who hurt the San Francisco defense with a Giant club-leading seven catches for 98 yards.

“Bavaro is the best tight end I’ve ever seen in my life,” 49er linebacker Bill McColl said. “I found that I was spending most of my time trying to hold up Bavaro at the line of scrimmage, and that weakened our defense somewhat.”

One more thing. In the second half, it was the Giant defense, often referred to as the NFL’s strongest, that came haltingly to life. Lawrence Taylor and his friends didn’t win it this time, but they kept the Giants from losing it as they ran their close-game string to one more.

They have won their last six games by 7, 3, 3, 2, 3 and 4 points.