PRO FOOTBALL : Rams’ Forecast: Clear to the Super Bowl

It is beginning to look as if the Rams have the inside track to the Super Bowl title this year, although, as a wild-card team, they will be on the road. Consider:

--Psychologically, they will be playing the New York Giants at the right time and place Sunday in New Jersey.

--Physically, the right time and place to catch Joe Montana, the 49er quarterback, is the following week in San Francisco, after he has been mauled by the Minnesota Vikings.

--And, finally, as an NFC team, the Rams can handle any AFC team in the Super Bowl.

About this week’s game, the Rams know two things: They can win on a winter stage in the East, and they can outscore the Giants, having done it two months ago, 31-10.

If weather could hinder Coach John Robinson’s team, it would have happened Sunday in Philadelphia, where quarterback Jim Everett and his receivers often played catch as if it were July, and more significantly, the offensive line finally prevailed on a cold day, 21-7.

Good Ram linemen in other winters, going to outdoor playoff games in Minnesota and Green Bay, have sometimes succumbed before their backs did.

Psychological considerations would favor the New York team if the Rams were venturing east for the first time this winter. Today, very little favors the Giants except their two-week layoff. And Ram momentum can neutralize that.

When the Vikings and 49ers meet at Candlestick Park on Saturday, both teams will be coming off a two-week layoff.

A break of that duration benefits any veteran player--but no one more than Montana.

For many years, the 49er quarterback has typically reached new peaks after layoffs.

The best example is Montana’s performances in the Super Bowl, which is played a fortnight after the conference championship games. On three occasions, Montana has been a Super Bowl winner.

On another memorable occasion, he rebounded from a month’s rest enforced by back surgery and threw three long touchdown passes in his first game back.

One reason a recess benefits Montana is that he isn’t the biggest of quarterbacks. The 49ers list him at 6-feet-2, 195 pounds, but he is not that tall or heavy.

So this is the wrong week to be playing a well-rested Montana. Next week is the right week.

That’s because the Vikings’ front four, the league’s best, probably will have beaten up Montana.

The Rams, assuming they’re in Candlestick next week, will be meeting a Montana who has just been worked over by a unit including two all-pros--Keith Millard, the NFL’s defensive player of the year, and Chris Doleman.

Moreover, the Rams play better than the 49ers do on the sponge that is the Candlestick field.

For Robinson’s team, the real Super Bowl is probably in the Meadowlands on Sunday.

Because of injuries, the Rams mainly lined up linebackers instead of defensive linemen at Philadelphia, yet the Eagles could score only a touchdown.

That adds up to a major indictment of the Philadelphia offense. The Rams’ defensive coaches earn high marks for doing the best they could--but even so, any good NFL offense should have clobbered that defense.

The problem with the Eagles is their offensive design and play calling.

In the day’s most revealing comment after the Ram defeat, quarterback Randall Cunningham said: “Our game plan basically was to run the ball off-tackle.”

On most Sundays, that seemed to be the Philadelphia game plan--although Cunningham is the principal running weapon on a club that has only journeyman running backs.

It appears that the Philadelphia offensive coach, Ted Plumb, didn’t get the most out of a talented quarterback.

Nor were the Eagles ready for a zone defense. There are all kinds of ways to beat a zone. One way is to use simultaneous crossing patterns short and deep. But instead of forcing the Rams out of a defense that should not have been so successful, the Eagles merely seemed confused.

In the fourth quarter, a frustrated Cunningham abandoned the game plan and took the Eagles 80 yards to an easy touchdown with what looked like sandlot passes and scrambles.

With Cunningham’s unique talents, that is probably the way Philadelphia should design its offense.

One question in San Francisco will be whether the Vikings can get their offense going against one of the NFL’s four best defenses.

Offensive deficiencies cost Minnesota three of its past six games after it had won six of seven at midseason.

The striking thing about the inconsistent Vikings--headed by quarterback Wade Wilson and 12 other Pro Bowl players, past or present--is that they played their best offensive football against opponents who have come at them with league-leading talent: Cincinnati with Boomer Esiason; Houston with Warren Moon and the Rams with Everett.

By contrast, in the season’s third week, the Vikings lost to the Pittsburgh Steelers, 27-14. The Steelers had lost their first two games by a composite 92-10.

The Vikings handled Esiason and Moon, but not Bubby Brister.

If the results suggest that the Vikings are motivated by exceptional opponents, they’re going to the right place this week.

In AFC competition Saturday and Sunday, it will be a notable upset if either underdog survives.

The Cleveland Browns have the quarreling Buffalo Bills outgunned. And in Denver, it should be child’s play for Bronco quarterback John Elway over Brister, the Steeler youngster.

On both days, the action is in the NFC, where the major matchup is Montana against the Minnesota defense.

At 33, Montana has reveled in his biggest season. And a partial explanation for one of his new records--highest quarterback rating in the NFL’s 70 years--is that he has better receivers.

The new tight end, Brent Jones, has been more effective than last season’s, John Frank, who after four years in the NFL retired to attend medical school.

Jones, noting that Montana can select between two of the game’s foremost wide receivers, Jerry Rice and John Taylor, and two productive pass-catching backs, Roger Craig and Tom Rathman, said:

“On a lot of teams, the receivers will be sloughing off, or jogging, because the ball is not going to go to them. You can’t do that in this offense, because you never know when you will get the ball.”

Neither, in most cases, does the defense.