PRO FOOTBALL : Giants Do It With Balance; 49ers Do It With Montana

America’s two best football teams, both 10-0, are driving toward their showdown at Candlestick Park on Dec. 3 in strikingly different ways:

--The New York Giants are exhibiting a classic balance of power. They rush the ball as productively as quarterback Phil Simms throws it.

--The San Francisco 49ers are being carried by one man, quarterback Joe Montana, whose passing game is the 49er offense.

In statistical terms, there seemed to be some improvement Sunday when San Francisco halfback Roger Craig rushed for 44 yards, but his 10-yard touchdown run was on a draw play against the weak Tampa Bay defense, and at 30 he has clearly lost a step since his recent injury.

The pressure is always heaviest on a quarterback who doesn’t get much help from his running backs against good defensive teams that are playing pass most of the way.

That is a new role for Montana.

And that’s what’s new about the 49ers this year.

In his first four Super Bowl seasons, Montana was merely the most effective player in a well-balanced machine.

In the present circumstances, his ability to throw game-winning passes, week after week, is surely the NFL achievement of the year.

Giant center Bart Oates was talking about his teammates the other day when he said:

“What I really like about (the Giants) is that even though the other team knows exactly what we are going to do, we still go out and do it.”

That is, Giant opponents know that either Simms or halfback Ottis Anderson, the operators in the NFL’s most basic offense, will be coming at them most of the time on plain, elementary passes or runs.

With 23 rushes, Anderson, who will be 33 next week, gained 91 yards against Detroit Sunday when Simms, who was 34 last week, threw for the game’s only two touchdowns.

The Detroit defense knew what to expect Sunday. But even more remarkable, when confronting Montana’s team, so did the Tampa Bay defense.

Earlier this year, Montana won one game when his running backs totaled only 21 yards.

“It builds confidence,” Oates said of the Giants’ season-long success in predictable situations.

Hall of Famer Merlin Olsen agrees, with San Francisco in mind.

“The 49ers are the most confident team I’ve ever seen,” Olsen said.

Randall Cunningham of the Philadelphia Eagles (6-4) will become pro football’s third quarterback to rush for 3,000 yards if he scrambles for at least six yards Sunday against the Giants in the NFL game of the week.

As ground gainers, the leaders are Fran Tarkenton with 3,674 yards and Tobin Rote with 3,128.

If, shortly, the league is to have its first matchup of 11-0 powers, the 49ers will have to get past the Rams (3-7) at Candlestick Park this Sunday while the Giants are winning at Veterans Stadium. And of these assignments, the Giants’ appears to be the more difficult.

Cunningham makes it so. The Eagles got off to their usual slow start this year, losing in Giants Stadium on opening day, 27-20, but have won their last four--largely because Cunningham is finally comfortable in the club’s new offense, as designed by a new offensive coordinator, Richie Kotite.

“Richie has worked on all the different little things,” Cunningham said. “He has worked to get my mechanics right, like shifting my feet around, and stepping up in the pocket.”

Accordingly, Cunningham threw three touchdown passes Sunday as the Eagles overcame Atlanta, 24-23.

Two weeks ago, he became the NFL’s first quarterback with four scoring passes and a same-day 100 yards rushing.

Meanwhile, the Eagle defense, which will get after Simms this Sunday, has pounded four starting quarterbacks out of the game in its last four starts.

If the Giants are still 11-0 Sunday night, they will have earned it.

If the Raiders are still in the race that night, they will have earned that, too.

After flying in from Miami this morning, Coach Art Shell’s club will face a short work week before its rematch at the Coliseum Sunday against the Kansas City Chiefs, who are the AFC’s best all-around club except at quarterback.

Except? Maybe Steve DeBerg is changing that image. He threw three touchdown passes against San Diego.

The longest was on a 90-yard play. On the rest of his completions, DeBerg gained 81 yards. He completed 11 of 24.

The Minnesota Vikings (4-6) have won three straight to get back in the playoff race, proving, their coach said, that there is more parity in the NFL this season than it might seem to readers who see two 9-1 teams in the standings, not to mention the two 10-0 teams.

The coach is Jerry Burns, 62, who said: “Two or three plays make all the difference in most pro games. And the big winners are up there this year because they happened to make two or three plays every week at the start of the season. That gave them the momentum that’s carried them.”

So what happened to the Vikings and Rams?

“Most people don’t realize it, but momentum is a two-way street,” Burns said. “You get on a downhill slide that might not even be your fault at first, then you begin to doubt yourself--at the same time that the (49ers and Giants) are believing more and more in themselves.”

A dedicated golfer, Burns said: “It’s like playing golf. You miss a makeable two-foot putt, it immediately shakes you. Miss another, and you’re shaky all day.

“But say you knock in an eight-footer when you’re just starting out. Right away, that makes every hole look as big as a washtub.

“I honestly think that this is another year of parity that was just (disguised) for a while.”

One stunning aspect of the Arizona-Super Bowl controversy is that according to several statewide polls, as many as 60,000 resentful Arizonans voted against a King-Civil Rights Day after hearing CBS announcer Greg Gumbel on an NFL pregame show last month.

Gumbel, the host of pro football’s highest-rated Sunday morning program, “NFL Today,” asserted that the league was prepared to abandon Phoenix as its 1993 Super Bowl site if the state voted the holiday down.

Comment:

--If he has that much influence there, Gumbel should move to Arizona and run for governor.

--The Arizona state legislature still has a chance to create a civil rights day with a new measure with new wording. Or so legal scholars say.