SUPER BOWL XXIV: DENVER BRONCOS vs. SAN FRANCISCO 49ERS : Broncos Need Their Best Because 49ers May Be Best Ever : San Francisco: Montana keeps the versatile offense in gear while defense relies on its depth.

The question as many see it now isn’t whether the San Francisco 49ers will beat the Denver Broncos on Sunday.

It’s being assumed that the 49ers will win their fourth Super Bowl in nine years. The question is whether they will continue to look like the best football team ever.

Against an AFC team, can they get back up to the performance level reached earlier this month when they overwhelmed two NFC powers, the Minnesota Vikings and the Rams?

A resourceful opponent, John Elway, could make the road difficult.

It won’t be a runaway if the Broncos get, say, two cheap touchdowns--after breaks--on an afternoon when Elway earns two more touchdowns.

But that isn’t realistic. The 49ers simply are stronger.

The anatomy of the 49ers:

AT A GLANCE

As created by Bill Walsh, the NFL’s coach of the 1980s, the 49ers are basically the same team that won the Super Bowl a year ago. They have many of the same stars who won it in ’81 and ’84.

Thus they have several advantages over every other team:

--The 49ers are still using Walsh’s short-pass, quick-strike offense, which is probably the NFL’s most effective with Joe Montana at quarterback.

--They have been refining and perfecting this very way of playing football for 11 years, throughout Montana’s pro career.

--They are still being coached by the staff that Walsh brought in to carry out his ideas on offense and defense, among them George Seifert, formerly defensive coordinator, now head coach, and Mike Holmgren, the offensive coordinator since 1986.

--They continue to emphasize depth in all positions. To keep the ship afloat in any storm, Walsh formulated the plan that is still in place--recruiting the league’s best-paid backups along with some of the league’s best starters. After injuries struck both teams this season, the Rams had to change their defense; the 49ers simply plugged in the spare parts paid for by owner Eddie DeBartolo.

--Most significant of all, the 49ers are still highly motivated. This year’s goal is to win without Walsh--to show him that they can.

“It’s made everybody concentrate a little more,” said Montana, who, as an uncommonly gifted athlete, really excels only when pushed.

One year it was a back injury. Last year it was the brief promotion of backup quarterback Steve Young--as orchestrated by Walsh. Frequently it’s the specter of defeat when Montana’s team is losing in the fourth quarter.

Never, however, has he seemed more highly motivated than this year. The Broncos, accordingly, are surely in trouble.

THE RUSHING ATTACK

Two things distinguish the 49ers when they’re running the ball: the effort that Roger Craig and Tom Rathman put into every play, whether they’re carrying or blocking, and the way they so often aim at the ends of the line.

Craig, who weighs 214 pounds, and Rathman, 232, both played at Nebraska, where they learned to take a hit. Both work hard on every play.

The 49ers’ ground game is based on a combination of traps and sweeps. They run more handoff sweeps--with linemen pulling to lead the ballcarrier--than any other team.

Thus, the Broncos, in a manner of speaking, may have picked the wrong year to rebuild. In a deliberate overhaul by Coach Dan Reeves, the Broncos in recent months have bulked up their offensive and defensive lines to match the inside power of the NFC teams that knocked them out of previous Super Bowls--the Washington Redskins and New York Giants.

The 49ers, however, aren’t that kind of team. Their idea of power isn’t to outweigh the defense at the point of attack but, for example, to use three tall tight ends at once, as they often do.

The Denver defense of several years ago, with its small, quick, smart athletes, was better armed than this one to stop Walsh football.

As defensively prepared by former coordinator Joe Collier, the Broncos have gone 4-0 in their most recent games against the 49ers. The agile Broncos in those days were a perfect match for the mobile 49ers. They aren’t now.

THE PASSING ATTACK

Running backs Craig and Rathman caught a total of 122 passes this season. The 49er flanker, Jerry Rice, who holds the NFL’s single-season record for touchdown catches, 22, had 17 this season. In the NFL’s 70 seasons, only one other player has ever caught more than 17 touchdown passes in any one year: the Miami Dolphins’ Mark Clayton, who caught 18 in 1984.

Rice is a force. So is John Taylor, the 49er split end who scored those 90-yard touchdowns in Anaheim. So is tight end Brent Jones, whose 40 catches more than doubled the production of last year’s tight end, John Frank.

In Sunday’s game, Montana will be looking for all five of them in the seams of Denver’s zone defenses before throwing his three-step rhythm passes.

Montana, who also throws rollout passes more accurately than anyone ever has, has been well protected this month by an always fresh offensive line in which seven blockers trade off in the five positions. The Bronco rush, in any case, doesn’t worry most teams.

The mark of a great pass offense is its ability to get a receiver so far open that there seems to have been a defensive mistake. That indicates both intelligent preparation and precise execution, and for years, it has been the mark of Montana teams.

THE DEFENSE

The 49ers have so much talent in their secondary that they can play a good defensive back, Darryl Pollard, at the left corner instead of a great one, Tim McKyer, simply because McKyer is an unlovable pop-off.

So one thing for 49er fans to worry about will be whether the Broncos can beat Pollard for an early touchdown before the 49ers hustle in McKyer.

Otherwise, the 49er secondary is so gifted--with starters Ronnie Lott, Don Griffin and Chet Brooks and nickel backs McKyer and Eric Wright--that it can give Elway five seconds or so to run around and still deny him the bomb.

Trouble will start for the 49ers if their front seven can’t get to Elway within five seconds. He becomes progressively more dangerous as he scrambles.

The Denver offensive team protects him with big, young linemen resembling the 1987 Redskins. The 49ers will attack him with a quick, stunting pass rush.

There are no all-pros in the 49er rush line--except for nose tackle Michael Carter, who, coming off a serious injury, might not be a factor--but they are all limber and pushy.

That makes the day’s decisive matchup the 49er rush vs. Elway.