49ers Try to Ignore Victory Predictions

These are nervous times for a nervous team, so the San Francisco 49ers have wrapped themselves in a carefully constructed and seemingly impenetrable cocoon.

One of the rare glimpses inside their world came Tuesday morning when they spent a required hour at the Superdome posing for pictures and answering questions. And virtually every question they hear is based on the assumption that they will win easily. The Broncos are given such a slim chance that Denver area travel agents can’t fill their Super Bowl charter flights.

This kind of talk scares the 49ers, who fear that, despite their best work, they may not be able to avoid believing at least some of what they hear and read.

San Francisco safety Ronnie Lott put forth the argument that the team is largely made up of overachievers.

“We have a lot of unselfish people,” he said. “We don’t have a lot of first-round draft picks, and one of them, Jerry Rice, works harder than anyone. We’ve got a lot of guys who’ve had to overachieve for a long time. People wondered about Roger Craig when he came out of school. A lot of people didn’t think Joe Montana could play. Everyone on this team feels he has something to accomplish, and that’s not going to stop.”

Lott said he reminded his teammates of that at a team meeting Monday night, adding, “Leave the point spread up to the bookies and gamblers. If we go into the game thinking we’re up two touchdowns, we’re going to be in trouble. You have to go out there like you’re the underdog. Really, we are underdogs because no one thought we’d be here two years in a row.”

Yet, asked to compare the two quarterbacks, Montana of the 49ers and John Elway of the Broncos, Lott smiled and said, “Well, one of them has three (championship) rings and one of them has none.”

When the remark drew a laugh, Lott quickly backed off, saying he was only kidding.

Elway told reporters that if the Broncos win, it would be “one of the greatest upsets of all time,” but his counterpart disagreed.

“Maybe that’s what’s being said, but that’s not what we’re feeling,” Montana said. “We’ve had two days of practice, and I haven’t noticed anything like that at all. We’ll take a one-point victory. You don’t want to blow a chance like this. The more you play these games, the more you appreciate them.”

A lot of the rest of the first full media day was taken up by Broncos talking about Broncos. “That kind of point spread hilarious,” receiver Vance Johnson said. “It’s ridiculous and I’ll bet the 49ers think it is too. It won’t affect them... they’re very serious and have made their reputations by showing up and playing the same way every week.” “In the past, we relied on our defense and John’s arm,’ linebacker Karl Mecklenburg said. “This year we won a lot of games when John didn’t play well, and we won when I didn’t play well.”