PRO FOOTBALL : It Was Mere Mud to Montana, but a Quicksand Bog to Everett

The Rams are a better football team than they seemed Sunday. Much better.

As coached by John Robinson, they’ve simply had the bad luck to come up with a very good team in a year when the San Francisco 49ers are proving to be one of the best in football history.

In the last two weeks, with quarterback Joe Montana still improving after 11 years in the NFL, the 49ers have trashed two sound opponents--the Minnesota Vikings, who have as much talent as San Francisco has--and the Rams.

And they’ve done it two ways.

A week ago, facing the NFL’s No. 1 defensive team, Montana threw the ball so quickly that the Viking rush couldn’t reach him, and he threw it so accurately that the 49ers won handily, 41-13.

To overpower the Rams Sunday, 30-3, the 49ers came out playing power football on a muddy field and immediately established the run.

Having shown the Rams the run in the first quarter, they faked it in the second quarter, and beat them before halftime, 21-3, with an assortment of Montana passes.

Against Minnesota’s man-for-man pass defense, the 49ers won with a bunch of short crossing patterns.

This time, against zone defenses, Montana, with more time to throw, threw longer passes, into the seams between defensive backs.

The 49ers won 14 of 16 regular-season games, but they have been about three times better in the playoffs. Their ability to improve is the most remarkable thing about them.

The question going into the game was which team would be most affected by the pregame rainstorm, which left the Candlestick Park playing field slick.

The answer came early in the first half. Although most of the Rams held their own with most of the 49ers on the rainy field, Jim Everett, the Ram quarterback, did not.

This was a game in which Everett was clearly beaten first by the field, then by the 49ers.

One of the tallest quarterbacks in the league at 6 foot 5, Everett this season also has seemed to be one of the NFL’s top quarterbacks, but he isn’t a great athlete.

Flipping around on the wet turf, he often found it difficult to keep his feet under him. He kept missing the square-outs, the deep hook passes, and the deep sideline passes that in recent weeks he had been completing routinely.

The contrast between Everett and Montana was in their athletic ability. Whenever Montana slipped on the slick grass, he recovered his balance quickly, and usually threw a completion. Everett threw misses and interceptions.

From the Ram point of view, the story of the game is that the field took Everett’s confidence away.

This was most obvious on the play of the game, 49er free safety Ronnie Lott’s long first-quarter sprint to deflect a touchdown-bound Everett pass to Flipper Anderson.

Although it was an all-pro play by Lott, he wouldn’t have gotten there in time if Everett had delivered the ball properly. Thrown from Everett’s unsteady platform, it came down five yards short as Lott arrived.

The two things that separate Montana from other quarterbacks are his feel for the game and his calm approach.

Nothing that happens to Montana or his team ever makes him nervous. On game day, he is the same man in the first five minutes of the game and the last five--which helps explain his many comebacks.

For more than a decade, Montana has played in one of the smartest offensive systems ever devised. This was Bill Walsh football that Montana clobbered the Rams with. It was developed in Walsh’s tour as a three-time Super Bowl coach, and it is being improved this season by coaches that Walsh brought in.

Finally, few quarterbacks have ever been associated with more talented teammates. At no time does Montana ever have to carry the 49ers on his back. That is expected of quarterback Randall Cunningham in Philadelphia, among others, but not of the 49er leader.

What you saw Sunday was an exceptional quarterback in an almost perfect environment--and that is Walsh’s legacy.

On a sunny day, on a firm field, Montana was going to win this game, because in perfect conditions, the 49ers are slightly better than the Rams in almost every respect--as a passing team, as a running team, and as a defensive team.

But it would have been closer on a good day. The Rams this season were a big play team--and the weather took away their big play shooter, Everett.