L.A.’s Woes Were Only Secondary : Rams: Youthful defensive backfield did not allow the big plays. But crafty Montana still taught them a short lesson.

The Rams did a decent job of keeping Jerry Rice from beating them Sunday. They slowed John Taylor, too. In fact, they pretty much managed to take the big plays away from a big-play offense.

So what did 49er quarterback Joe Montana do? He simply killed them softly with little plays. Lots and lots and lots of little plays that added up to a very big 30-3 victory in the NFC championship game.

At times, Montana made it look so easy, it appeared as if he was playing against a Pop Warner team.

The Rams have a wealth of inexperience in their defensive backfield. James Washington made his first start at free safety Sunday and rookie cornerbacks Darryl Henley and Alfred Jackson spent plenty of time on the field.

And the 49ers have a most-experienced quarterback, just the guy to give the Ram youngsters a quick, hard lesson in the facts of football life.

“They have a very diversified offense,” cornerback LeRoy Irvin said. “They lined up. They showed us where they were at. We knew where they were at. And then they commenced to drop an overhand right on us.

“We can’t make excuses about being young. Young guys, old guys, he exploited us all. We’d seen it all before, but we couldn’t stop it. No matter what defense we were playing, Joe knew where to go. And he’s so good at reading defenses, that whenever we made a mistake, he was able to capitalize on it.”

Actually, Montana hurt the Rams even when they did everything right. If they had Rice and Taylor and tight end Brent Jones covered, he found running back Roger Craig or fullback Tom Rathman in the flat.

It was downright demoralizing.

“The defense absorbed as much as it could,” Ram Coach John Robinson said. “We didn’t give up any huge plays from a passing standpoint. We made him double pump by taking away some of his outside receivers, but he was able to adjust.”

And Montana adjusted the 49ers into another Super Bowl in the process.

Montana sliced apart their zone with such poise and deftness that the Rams hardly realized they were bleeding. Five yards here, seven yards there, an occasional 20-yard pass mixed in.

“If you take Jerry Rice and John Taylor away and you don’t get Montana on the ground right away, he’ll go to his second, or third, or maybe even fourth receiver,” cornerback Jerry Gray said. “If you don’t get him on his back, he’ll beat you.”

The Rams did not sack Montana and beat them he did, merrily leading his band of men on four scoring drives that contained 12 or more plays.

“Joe just went tick-tack-toe, tick-tack-toe and they kept moving down the field,” Irvin said, pretending to throw imaginary darts.

The Rams’ defensive scheme for most of the second half of the season revolved around sitting back in their zone and forcing opponents to earn every score with long, sustained drives. Sure, you can hit them with those darts, but it takes a quite a few to move down the field.

Montana, of course, is a master at getting ahead the old-fashioned way. He has no qualms about earning his points. And Sunday he did it his way.

“We have to play the hand we’ve got,” said defensive coordinator Fritz Shurmur, in reference to the Rams’ injury-riddled secondary. “And so that’s been our scheme. But Joe never made the mistake to knock himself out and we weren’t able to force the mistake that would have knocked him out.”

Irvin and Gray insisted that Ram inexperience was not a key factor, but some of the young guys sounded as if they were a bit awe-struck at Montana’s uncanny efficiency.

“It was the first start of my career and I have to go up against the best in the business, one of the great quarterbacks in football history,” Washington said. “All I can say is I gave it my best. It was an experience, I’ll tell you that. Unfortunately, it turned out this way.”

Henley even admitted that a feeling of helplessness began to take hold some time during the third quarter.

“Yeah, I think we started to get frustrated,” he said. “We needed to make some plays, but he just kept getting it done.

“I mean, were there any incompletions? He was really on. I’m not sure our inexperience hurt us that much. Today, he was just the man.”

For Montana, of course, it was hardly more than just another day at the office.

“He’s in a league by himself,” Irvin said. “I don’t know who else is in that league, but it don’t take long to take roll.”

The Ram secondary was hardly all present and accounted for, but it probably didn’t matter. After all, this is no average Joe.