49ers Using Colts’ Debacle as a Warning

There is a prevent defense, a significant new type of mind game that the San Francisco 49ers are playing before Super Bowl XXIV even kicks off.

What the team that has been installed as a prohibitive favorite is attempting to do, while being called one of the most awesome forces the NFL has ever known, is relate to a team that’s not in business anymore, the Baltimore Colts, and what destroyed their infallibility on Jan. 12, 1969.

That’s 21 Super Bowls ago, but the outcome is being used by the 49ers as a valuable lesson to be learned before they step forth to face the Denver Broncos Sunday under the dome in New Orleans. The 49ers are rated 11 1/2-point choices, one of the widest Super Bowl spreads since the Colts embarrassed themselves in losing to the New York Jets.

The Colts were upset by the Jets, 16-7, after the odds makers decreed the Colts would win in a cakewalk--by 18 points or more.

When it was over, the most profound quote of all came from a down-home Texas cowboy philosopher by the name of Don Maynard, who caught passes so well he later entered the Hall of Fame. Asked what he thought of the outcome, Maynard, a Jets wide receiver, merely observed, “There never has been a horse that couldn’t be roped.”

The 49ers, coaches and players, are cautioning themselves that they can’t have a repeat of the Colts’ pratfall with the Jets in Super Bowl III. To emphasize the point, the 49ers are seeking out newspaper stories written about the Colts that described them, somewhat prematurely, as the ultimate in total precision, versatility and ability.

Dave Rahn, in the public relations office of the 49ers, called the Baltimore Evening Sun to inquire about the possibility of locating copies of stories that were written in advance of Super Bowl III, especially ones that wrote off the Jets as some kind of a collection of stumbling Humpty Dumpties.

Asked what he was seeking specifically, Rahn explained it was a “special project being put together at the request of the 49ers’ coaching staff.” So here he was endeavoring to go back more than two decades and locate flattering descriptions of the Colts that the 49ers might now apply to themselves so they could see there’s precedence for a Super Bowl shock.

Credit the 49ers with a different twist in pregame preparation.

When Rahn of the 49ers couldn’t find the kind of material he was after, it was suggested he contact the Pro Football Hall of Fame and its director of research, Joseph Horrigan, who answered the request by transmitting 19 pages of stories, before and after, of the Colts-Jets showdown.

In winning the 1968 NFL championship, the Colts dismantled the Cleveland Browns, 34-0, as Tom Matte scored three touchdowns. The Colts were being described as one of the greatest teams since air replaced stuffings in a football.

The Colts, as John Unitas recovered from an elbow injury and Earl Morrall took over the quarterback controls, had gone through an exhibition, regular season and playoff series by posting a record of 20-2. They also were on a nine-game winning streak going into the Super Bowl.

Some of the headlines the 49ers have brought back from the Colts-Jets Super Bowl: “Colts Far Outrate Jets Man Against Man” (Miami News); “The Problem Of Being Too Good” (Los Angeles Herald-Examiner); “Colts Are Rated Super Team--Jets Are Something Else Again (Buffalo News); “Colts Praise Jets But Figure To Bury Them” (Chicago American); “Colts By 60-0?” (Pro Football Weekly). And so it went.

But the grand illusion was shattered when the Jets played well and stunned the Colts. What the 49ers’ coaches are alert to finding is a way to prepare a mental defense, through information, so that nothing similar will happen to their team.