PRO FOOTBALL : Will Ram Opportunity Knock?

The question is whether a team of opportunists, the Rams, can win Sunday when the San Francisco 49ers are at the top of their game--when they are more effective, offensively, than they were at any time in the 1980s, during which they won three Super Bowls.

After last week’s games in Candlestick Park and Giants Stadium, the most pertinent answers came from two of the better players on the losing teams:

--The NFL’s defensive player of the year, tackle Keith Millard of the Minnesota Vikings, said: “(The 49ers) won’t be beaten the rest of the year. It doesn’t matter who they play.”

--Gary Reasons of the New York Giants, one of the NFL’s steadiest linebackers, said: “I don’t see the Rams beating the 49ers right now. They didn’t play well enough (last Sunday) to beat them.”

What’s happened in San Francisco lately is that quarterback Joe Montana and his teammates and their coaches--all of them handpicked by former coach Bill Walsh--have raised offensive football to a new level.

Probably no other 49er offensive team--perhaps no offensive group anywhere, any time--could have done what the 49ers did to a great defensive team in the first half Sunday: four Montana touchdown passes and 95 yards running by halfback Roger Craig for a 27-3 lead.

That was Walsh football. Same system. Same team.

The only difference is that as coached by George Seifert, the 49ers have been even better. The reasons:

--Their main players are more mature.

--As a team, they have been relatively injury-free this season, improbably, for the second year in a row.

--And unlike most defending Super Bowl champions, their players are all highly motivated.

Said 49er safety Tom Holmoe: “There are a lot of guys here who would like to see how we do without (Walsh).”

That, no doubt, is most of it.

In the second quarter last Sunday, the 49ers were ahead by only 7-3 when the Vikings outguessed them and blanketed Montana’s primary receiver at the Minnesota eight-yard line.

At that moment, 49er tight end Brent Jones, who was racing left at the left hash mark, looked back at Montana, saw the problem and changed direction instantly, racing laterally to his right through the end zone.

Simultaneously, Montana rolled right at high speed and, shortly before rolling out of bounds, whipped the ball to Jones shortly before he ran out of bounds.

The play had the look of The Catch in 1981 when a similar running pass to wide receiver Dwight Clark defeated Dallas in the last minute of the NFC title game and launched the 49ers’ Super Bowl dynasty.

It had that look--but it was much different. The Catch came on a designed play, with Clark lined up at right end. The Montana-Jones pass came on a broken play.

When the ball is in Montana’s hands these days, the 49ers are so smooth that everything they do seems to have been rehearsed all year. As it usually has. They practice broken patterns at greater length than some college teams practice passing.

The Rams are a more conventional big-play passing team than the 49ers, and their quarterback, Jim Everett, is a more assertive passer than Montana. Under pressure, he is more likely than Montana to throw the ball to receivers who may be faster than San Francisco’s, Henry Ellard and Flipper Anderson.

Everett has demonstrated, in any case, that he belongs on the same field with Montana.

One difference this season is that Everett’s team has, on the whole, been more opportunistic. The Rams have suddenly taken charge of five or six games when all seemed lost.

Most recently, in last week’s Ram game, the Giants began the first half with two field-goal drives, then began the second half with an 82-yard touchdown drive. That would have been good for a 13-0 lead--possibly insurmountable--if Giant Coach Bill Parcells hadn’t blundered shortly before halftime.

Sensitive to criticism that he is too conservative, Parcells called for a pass at the Giant 20--with 34 seconds left--instead of asking quarterback Phil Simms simply to kneel down. The Giants weren’t going anywhere even if they had completed it.

The Rams intercepted and scored on the next play when the Giant defense, which wanted only to throttle Parcells, couldn’t get its heart into a rush on Everett.

Parcells’ call will be rehashed interminably in New York, taking its place with the Joe Pisarcik play a dozen years ago. That time, instead of asking quarterback Pisarcik to kneel down with the ball as time ran out, the Giants ran it, fumbled and lost the game.

The Giants are a kneeling-down team, not a passing team. When you forget who you are, the Anaheim opportunists are going to make you pay for it.

In Denver Sunday, the Cleveland Browns will be the sentimental favorite of those who don’t want to see the Broncos in the Super Bowl again. When they were there in ’87 and ‘88, they were blown out by 19 and 32 points.

The Browns, what’s more, have a chance, having come together in recent weeks. The return of running back Kevin Mack balances an offense that has all the passes--in and out, short and long--now that quarterback Bernie Kosar’s elbow merely hurts without hampering him.

The Cleveland defense is aging but still a force with, among others, linebacker Clay Matthews and defensive end Carl Hairston.

Matthews remains the best fundamental linebacker in the league. Watching Matthews is like watching a clinic on playing linebacker.

But if Bronco quarterback John Elway finally has a handle on his team’s new offense, as it seemed last week when he passed as well as rookie Bobby Humphrey ran, it will be a Denver day.

The problem for Cleveland, as it was for Pittsburgh last week, is that there is too little oxygen in Mile High Stadium and too much noise.

In backing away from its noise-abatement program this season, the NFL has taken a strong stand in favor of unsportsmanlike conduct.