Do 49ers Really Have Right Stuff to Win Super Bowl?

I worry about the San Francisco 49ers.

This is a fine team, supposedly destined for the Super Bowl. I don’t worry that they might get beat because I have no rooting interest. I worry that they might get hurt. They just might be too wimpy.

A harsh word, I know, but how else can I say it?

Pro football is a barbaric, savage, cutthroat, ruthless sport. And that’s the action in the stands. On the field, it’s caveman time, survival of the meanest.

So check out the 49er quarterback, Joe Montana.

Montana marries a beautiful actress, and they decide to go on a strict, healthy diet together. Joe loves his junk food, but hey, marriage is all about teamwork and sacrifice.

Well, Joe sneaks out one day in his sports car. He cruises into the drive-through at a Jack-in-the-Box. His car phone rings. He answers. It is his lovely wife, Jennifer. Just then, the voice in the speaker booms out, “Welcome to Jack-in-The-Box. May I take your order?”

Joe is the first husband ever to be caught red-handed on his way to a secret rendezvous with a Bonus Jack.

No big deal for the average Joe, but this is Joe Montana, king of the quarterbacks. Do you think anyone ever told Norm Van Brocklin or Johnny U they couldn’t eat Twinkies?

Next example: I’m interviewing Montana one day at 49er team headquarters, the day after he leads a typical 49er slaughter of the sacrificial Rams. Joe had been merely brilliant, at least to the untrained eye.

In a few minutes, Joe will meet with players and coaches for a film review of the game. Each player will be issued a computer evaluation of his performance. A report card.

Joe is actually nervous. He explains that the report card features coach’s markings--pluses for good, circles for OK and minuses for bad. He figures he’s in for a few minuses.

“You get a lot of razzing,” he says. “I hate getting ridiculed. In a way, I’m a perfectionist.”

I stare at Montana.

“Can’t you just tell them who you are?” I ask.

He shrugs. And, I swear, he blushes.

I form a mental picture of an assistant coach handing Bobby Layne a report card. Next scene, Bobby is in some smoky lounge shooting 8-ball and knocking down shooters, while back at the team camp three rookie linemen are trying to dislodge a rolled-up report card from an assistant coach’s mouth.

In real life, Joe Montana, brow furrowed, heads for his team meeting.

But that’s one guy. Surrounded by drippy-fanged Hell’s Angels in cleats, right?

Montana’s star receiver is nicknamed Fifi, because he stole his hair-style idea from a poodle.

Fifi! Think about that.

How tough is Jerry Rice? As a kid, his claim to juvenile delinquency fame was that he skipped school one day. As punishment, the principal made Jerry try out for the football team.

In college, Rice laundered his own uniform so it would look nice, and he sometimes wept after losses.

What about on the field? Like any great receiver, Rice comes to the huddle demanding that the quarterback throw him the ball, describing how he will embarrass the defense. Right?

“Jerry is pretty quiet,” Montana says of Rice. “He might say, ‘My guy’s playing me too tight, I think I can get open long.’ But that’s rare.”

See what I mean? And the coach . . .

Bill Walsh plays tennis, reads books without pictures, drinks wine poured from corked bottles and probably doesn’t even chew gum, let alone throw it.

This is a team in big trouble, then?

So it would seem. But you check the standings; the 49ers are just about unbeatable.

Walsh lays out a game plan like Napoleon. You get the impression that he is working with the unfair advantage of a few million extra brain cells.

Rice steps onto the field, and suddenly it’s the man trying to defend against Fifi whose hair stands on end. Rice not only moves as well as any receiver alive, he has hands like pastry bear claws. Soft and sticky.

And his polite and shy manner notwithstanding, Rice has that lean and hungry look. The word Montana and other admirers use most often to describe Rice is hungry.

Maybe Fifi’s wife doesn’t let him eat junk food.

Montana? Mr. Meek steps onto the field and it is his. This is a personality transformation modern science cannot explain.

Joe analyzes defenses and rips them to shreds with his audibles. He sneers at blitzes and flying forearms. He sees the field in wide-screen slo-mo.

Above all, he is cool. Opponents would like to make Joe bleed, but they’d settle for making him perspire.

Defying all logic and convention, the 49ers have the best quarterback, wide receiver and coach in football, maybe the best defense, and probably the best team.

Go figure. Maybe this is the first step in the Big Game Plan, in which the meek inherit the earth.