They Have to Read, React and Reject : Defensive backs: 49ers’ Lott concentrates on stopping the pass first. Rams’ Gray has to do a little of everything.

For the NFL champion San Francisco 49ers, it was touch and go in the Super Bowl at Miami last year when the Cincinnati Bengals sent rookie running back Ickey Woods prancing out around the end of the line.

Woods had been having a big game. Indeed, he’d had a big season, making rookie of the year. But this time, he didn’t even cross the line of scrimmage.

As he turned to cut upfield, he was surprised to see 49er free safety Ronnie Lott, who, as he plowed into Woods’ chest, was moving very fast.

It was as if a bomb had gone off in the big running back’s chest. He stopped, shuddered perceptibly and dropped to the ground.

Woods played again that day, though not very well. And, injured this season, he hasn’t done much since.

Lott, however, is still in business, still knocking down passes and people--seemingly indiscriminately--on his way to his eighth Pro Bowl in nine years.

“As a defensive back, my job is pass defense,” he said. “Tackling running backs is kind of an afterthought, kind of a bonus. Against the Rams (Sunday) my focus, as usual, will be on the pass, not the run. It doesn’t matter whether we’re man for man or in a zone defense. I’ll be thinking pass at the start of every play.”

So how does a free safety think pass and see run? And get up fast enough to tackle Woods for a loss?

“That time I was reading the back-side tight end,” Lott said, identifying a back-side player as one who lines up away from the side where the ball is headed.

“It’s all keys and reads and responses,” he said. “Say Damone Johnson is at tight end for the Rams. He might release outside or inside, or fire straight out. Those are keys. My job is to read the key correctly and respond instantly.”

Again this year, the Rams have a 1,000-yard rusher, Greg Bell. Plus guile and speed at wide receiver in Henry Ellard and Flipper Anderson. In the NFC championship game, how will Lott cope with all that?

“When Jim Everett is at quarterback, in a game of this magnitude, you look for a pass on every down,” he said. “They won’t throw on every play, but you look for it.”

On third-and-one?

“Third-and-one will really be second-and-one,” Lott said. “In this game, the Rams will be going for it (on fourth down).”

What if Lott is chasing Ellard as Bell blasts through with the ball?

“You hope that somebody in the front seven will get him,” Lott said. “My job, if Greg Bell or Robert Delpino has the ball, is to react--to make sure I get in front of them. Greg is a powerful runner--he can run over you--but I don’t mind being run over if I can hold on. We’ll let him have his nine or 10 (yards).”

So, it’s Flipper Anderson first?

Said Lott: “I’m thinking Flipper first, second, third and fourth.”

GRAY HAS IT TOUGHER

At Anaheim this week, the defensive emphasis in Ram practices has been slightly different. Whereas the 49er secondary concentrates on pass plays, Ram coaches involve their secondary in runs and passes both.

The only 49er defensive back who has much running-play responsibility is the strong safety, Chet Brooks.

By contrast, the Rams, in their famous zone defenses, frequently use cornerbacks on force plays against runs.

Veteran Ram cornerback Jerry Gray, who will join Lott in the NFC Pro Bowl lineup next month for the fourth consecutive year, agrees that it’s tougher playing his position on his team than it would be on most other teams.

“It isn’t just the 49ers,” said Gray, who led the Rams in tackles this season with 67. “Most clubs tell their cornerbacks not to worry about the run, just watch the receiver.

“The problem for me--at the start of every play--is getting mentally ready for two totally different things. A Ram cornerback has to be an excellent tackler and an excellent cover guy--but you never know what you’ll be doing next.”

Gray’s job really gets complicated in a 49er game, in which quarterback Joe Montana is always a threat to throw to a wide receiver, Jerry Rice or John Taylor, or a tight end--or back. And, in which halfback Roger Craig is always a threat to run away.

“My goal Sunday is to be set every time to stop either the deep ball or the running game,” Gray said. “I can do either. I learned the keys and the techniques years ago. So it’s all mental--trying to be ready for anything, for everything.

“You just can’t let the 49ers get their running game going. They can put together a 60-yard drive in a minute and a half. No team in the league does a better job of mixing it up--dumping the ball off, getting it deep, running the ball. First, you think through what you might have to do, then you do it.”

In playing mental football, when you’re up against the 49ers, what’s the most important requirement?

“You can’t let yourself get discouraged if they get a play on you,” Gray said. “You have to keep your confidence and enthusiasm up when they hit you with a big play--as they will.

“John Taylor runs passes with a punt returner’s skills. Jerry Rice is the top offensive player in the league. Roger Craig is the most determined runner in the league. You know all about Joe Montana. You don’t shut those guys out.”

In a 49er game, after Montana makes a big play, what does it take to keep confidence up?

“You need the shortest memory in the stadium,” Gray said. “You have to completely forget what they just did.

“When you go back out there, you have to forget the past and get ready for anything: a dink, a bomb or Roger Craig. It’s all mental.”

A MATTER OF PERSPECTIVE

In the third Ram-49er game of the season, Gray and Lott agree, the winning players will be those who most effectively defend against Montana and Everett.

“The trick is to visualize the play the way you want to make it, and then make it,” Gray said. “I think of myself closing on Jerry Rice before the ball closes on him.

“I visualize getting Roger Craig down any way I can. He’s such a powerful, high-knee action runner that you have to grab whatever you can grab.

“There’s no way to be completely ready for Rice and Craig at the same time. The things you’ve got to do to stop Rice are crazily different from what it takes to stop Craig. And you never know what Montana is going to do with that ball until he does it. But it helps a lot to visualize yourself making both kinds of plays.”

The Ram who concerns the 49ers most, Lott said, isn’t Ellard or Bell but Everett.

“Everybody raves about Everett’s strong arm,” Lott said. “It isn’t that at all. It’s his strong mind. He has the nerve to wait and fall back and throw the ball at just the right split second. I think Jim Everett should be the first $3-million man in football.”

If Lott and Gray sometimes talk like coaches, one reason is that both have studied the game for years. Both, unlike many athletes, are college graduates who have worked and willed their way into many Pro Bowls.

The summer after his rookie year with the Rams, Gray hustled back to Texas to earn his degree in communications.

One of eight children of a Lubbock dock loader, Gray, who stands just under 6 feet and weighs 183 pounds, still spends the spring months in the peace and quiet of Austin, getting ready for Rice and Craig.

Lott, a 203-pounder at 6-1, grew up in Rialto but has moved to the San Francisco area. Between morning and afternoon 49er practices, he goes home for lunch.

One of three children of a regular army master sergeant, Lott, a public administration major, graduated with his USC class in four years, going to school year-round for two of them.

“I thought it would be worth giving up a few summer evenings,” he said.

As a free safety, Lott sees the world from a perspective that is somewhat different from that of Gray, a cornerback who plays free safety only in the Rams’ nickel defenses.

“I used to keep a notebook with entries on every NFL receiver and running back, but I don’t do that anymore,” Lott said. “I’m convinced now that pro defense isn’t a question of whether they’re going to run at you, or throw the ball, on any given play.

“Football today is a coordinators’ game. I try to understand the whole situation. I try to understand what the offensive coordinators are up to. If I can get a little handle on that, I don’t worry so much about whether they’re going to throw it to Ellard this time, or hand it to Bell. It’s more helpful to understand the overall philosophy.”

What Lott means is that at times he can guess what’s coming--in somewhat the same sense that, occasionally, some hitters can correctly guess the location of a fastball.

With a big game coming up, however, he wouldn’t say that.

What he said was: “There are weak areas in every defense, and a good coordinator is a guy who properly attacks the weak points. That’s what makes (Ram coordinator) Ernie Zampese a genius.

“NFL coordinators are all different, and so the offenses are all different, with players that are much the same. That makes defensive football about 80% mental.

“But the game is won or lost with the other 20% of what you’ve got. You still have to make the play. I’ve known some great readers who weren’t very good players. The real key is the quickness, the athletic ability, to jump right now when your head says jump.”

Twelve months ago, Lott combined the 80% and the 20% to put Ickey Woods away, but in all these years, truthfully, he’s never been able to hit Greg Bell that hard.