Trouble in Paradise : Football: 49ers might have been NFL’s best again at end of last season, but there are cracks in foundation.

We know of psychics who bend soup spoons with hard stares and mystics who claim Elvis as a transcendental hot-line partner.

We have crystal balls, Ouija boards, seances, Kreskin.

Why is it no one has been able to predict the demise of the San Francisco 49ers?

A Ram coach lost eight divisional titles waiting for a premonition. Then, he lost his job.

Jim Everett lost his confidence waiting.

Once, 1982 seemed like a decent bet. The 49ers finished 3-6 in a strike-shortened season after winning their first Super Bowl title. The team rebounded in 1984 to win Super Bowl XIX.

Then, 1986 held promise after quarterback Joe Montana underwent back surgery in September. But he was back by Nov. 9.

Then came consecutive Super Bowl titles in 1988 and 1989. The end was near.

Wasn’t it?

Montana underwent elbow surgery last year. The 49ers started 4-6 and missed the playoffs, but won six consecutive games to finish 10-6, crushing three contenders to conclude what 49er fans considered a miserable season.

Now, the 49ers return for another title run. Montana might be back, too.

When is enough enough? Can’t this team, just once, know how it feels to be the Cleveland Indians?

“It’s human nature,” said Jesse Sapolu, the veteran 49er lineman. “Whenever someone has been at the top for so long, people can’t wait for a change. People go for the underdog. When Mike Tyson was the dominating champion for so long, people couldn’t wait for someone to come in and beat him.”

Good news, NFC West: This might be the year to take your best shot at the 49ers. After a decade of uncommon dominance, the 49ers have exposed their chins.

Former coach John Robinson calls the 49ers the greatest transition team ever for their ability to maintain championship stride through trials and trauma.

True enough. When Sapolu walked into training camp this summer, the only teammate left from his rookie season of 1983 was Montana.

Suddenly, the owner who spent whatever it took to win Super Bowls says he will do so no longer. “It just got totally out of control,” Eddie DeBartolo Jr. said recently of his team’s finances.

The quarterback, Montana, the common thread for 10 seasons, nurses a right elbow held together by stitches.

The offensive coordinator, Mike Holmgren, the link to the Bill Walsh legacy, left to become head coach of the Green Bay Packers, taking about half of the 49er staff with him.

The political infighting that ties some franchises in knots now permeates the NFL’s model franchise.

Tony Razzano, 66, the 49ers’ longtime scouting director, resigned in a huff last January, claiming that he was underappreciated.

Razzano is writing a book largely debunking the myth of Walsh as genius.

“They had a guy running the offense that was overrated,” Razzano says, “and I’m not talking about Joe Montana.”

Championship football always requires the delicate manipulation of money, talent and turmoil.

The 49ers dominated all elements in the 1980s. But nothing is forever.

MONEY

Information released at the NFL antitrust trial revealed what most already knew--DeBartolo lost a fortune to win four Super Bowls.

His team reported losses of $16 million in 1989 alone. One published report estimated 49er losses at nearly $45 million since 1982.

“People would have me psychoanalyzed and thrown in the booby-hatch if we continued to lose $1 million, $2 million a year,” DeBartolo said at a recent news conference. “You’d have to be a bumbling idiot not to try to balance your books and come out even. That’s what we’re trying to do.”

Why the change of heart? Last February, the Wall Street Journal reported details of a proposed financial restructuring of Edward DeBartolo Sr.’s recession-wary real estate empire.

The newspaper reported, at one point, that DeBartolo Jr. considered selling 70% to 80% of the family’s 90% stake in the 49ers. He denies this. “I’ll go down with the ship,” he said.

Still, the implications of his cost-cutting edict are clear: The slumping family business will no longer subsidize the 49ers.

The team reportedly asked some players, nose tackle Michael Carter in particular, to take pay cuts. Jerry Rice, perhaps the greatest receiver ever, is holding out for $3 million to $4 million per season.

DeBartolo maintains that the 49ers will remain one of the league’s top-paying teams, and Coach George Seifert doesn’t think money has to be a divisive issue.

“I guess you could allow it to,” Seifert said. “You can always come up with excuses for not getting the job done. Ultimately, the players who are on the team will be happy and well compensated.”

But those who have chased the 49ers believe that the psychology of money cannot be underestimated.

LeRoy Irvin, a former Pro Bowl cornerback for the Rams, said the financial disparity between the 49ers and the Rams cast a lingering pall over the locker room.

For a long time, the Rams were the most serious threat to the 49ers’ throne in the NFC West, and won a divisional title in 1985. That the Rams might have been guilty only of fiscal responsibility was of little comfort.

“It made them feel superior and it made us feel inferior,” said Irvin, now a walk-on assistant coach at Cal State Northridge. “They were still the team to beat, but it was like they always bragged to us. We’d see them in the off-season and they’d brag about the way they got treated.

“(Ram owner) Georgia (Frontiere) treated us well, but not like DeBartolo (treated the 49ers). They would have gourmet meals on the plane coming back from away games. We’d think, ‘Damn, gourmet meals.’ All we ate was airplane food.”

The symbolism was no more evident than in 1989, when the Rams and 49ers played an exhibition in Tokyo. The teams stayed in different wings of the same luxury hotel, but it seemed like different worlds.

“We had these little matchbox rooms,” Irvin said. “They had really nice rooms. Our per diem was gone in a day because it was so expensive. But those guys, like Joe (Montana) and Jerry (Rice), they had their own single rooms. We had to double up. To the players, it’s all a mental game. Players start thinking they’re superior and they play a lot better.”

Irvin said the Rams’ annual contract problems with star players had a grating impact on performance. Irvin, tailback Eric Dickerson and receiver Henry Ellard--three of the team’s top players in the decade--all experienced bitter contract holdouts.

Irvin brooded over his contract to the point of suspicion.

“They always say, ‘LeRoy, did you throw the games?’ ” he said. “No, you don’t throw the games. You play as hard as you can. But you were only playing as well as you could at the moment. It’s like a boxer. If you don’t prepare, you still get in the ring. You’re going to do your best, but you’re going to have a bad night. We had a lot of bad nights.”

And the 49ers?

“They never had all those distractions,” Irvin said. “Talent-wise, we were as good as them in some positions, in most positions. But when you’re thinking about your contract in summer camp and in the off-season, your mind is not on the business at hand. All they were thinking about in the off-season was the Super Bowl.”

Irvin said the 49ers don’t seem so invincible now.

“(The NFC West) didn’t catch up with them,” he said. “They came down to everybody else. New Orleans is playing better, sure. Atlanta is better. But the 49ers are just not as dominant as they were before. Now that they’re cutting down the salaries, other teams are not going to look at them the same.”

TALENT

Razzano complains that Walsh gets too much credit for building the 49ers’ dynasty. He’ll tell you Walsh wanted to draft Stanford’s Steve Dils in 1979 instead of Joe Montana. He will tell you Walsh made many mistakes.

Walsh, who is busy readying his Stanford team, is no longer responding to questions about Razzano.

The 49ers selected Montana with a third-round pick in 1979. Montana’s first favorite receiver, Dwight Clark, was a 10th-round choice.

And it is still difficult to believe 15 players were taken ahead of Rice in 1985.

But the 49ers’ 1986 draft was even better, maybe the greatest in NFL history: defensive end Larry Roberts in the second round; fullback Tom Rathman, cornerback Tim McKyer and receiver John Taylor in the third; pass-rush specialist Charles Haley, tackle Steve Wallace and defensive tackle Kevin Fagan in the fourth, and cornerback Don Griffin in the sixth.

“As long as you have (a high) talent level, you’re going to win,” Razzano said. “In the past, 50% of the talent level was Joe Montana.”

But as Montana’s career hangs in the balance, the talent around him has also become suspect.

After the 1990 season, the team did not protect two championship kingpins, safety Ronnie Lott and tailback Roger Craig. Both signed as free agents with the Raiders.

The 49ers’ drafts have also been criticized of late, specifically the first-round selection of Dexter Carter, a brilliant but brittle tailback, in 1990; the choice of nose tackle Ted Washington in 1991, and safety Dana Hall in April.

Razzano thinks that Seifert, the team’s defensive coordinator under Walsh, is the best coach in the NFL today. But Razzano criticized recent 49er drafts.

“The secondary needs help,” he said. “They do not have the kind of talent in the secondary that we’ve enjoyed in the past. He (Seifert) knows it, I know it. Hopefully, they can do something about it.”

In the past, the 49ers were not afraid to spend top dollar for quality veteran backups. They once signed past-his-prime Buffalo nose tackle Fred Smerlas for $750,000 a season. But those days appear to be over.

Quarterback Steve Young, who has been waiting five years to take over the 49ers, has to wonder what he might be taking over.

Young is an optimist.

“Two years ago, no one imagined that Ronnie and Roger wouldn’t be on this team,” he said. “But we’ve made the transition. Who knows what the chemistry will be like? I don’t sit back and go, ‘Gee, I hope the chemistry is going to be right for me.’ You just live. You go.”

TURMOIL

Holmgren, who tutored under Walsh, charts his own course in Green Bay. Others followed:.

--Sherman Lewis, the 49ers’ receivers coach, became Holmgren’s offensive coordinator.

--Defensive backs coach Ray Rhodes left to become Green Bay’s defensive coordinator.

--Special teams coach Lynn Stiles left to become a personnel director for the Kansas City Chiefs.

“There’s enough of a link with the past,” Seifert says.

“There’s kind of a tradition to build on. Even though I was basically a defensive coach, I’ve still been with Bill (Walsh) a long time and have a sense of the system. Plus, it’s good sometimes to have some change to infuse some new ideas.”

The 49ers’ new offensive coordinator is Mike Shanahan, the former Raider head coach who had a falling out with Dan Reeves in Denver.

Shanahan believes his job is to keep the 49er offense intact.

“They’ve been very successful with this system, and we’re going to continue to run it,” Shanahan said.

“I feel very comfortable with it. I’ve had a lot of time to digest it. I’ve spent a lot of time with coaches who have been here for many years. I’ve also got three quarterbacks that understand it quite well.”

Sapolu said reports of the 49ers’ demise are exaggerated.

“Look at ’88 when we won the Super Bowl,” he said. “We were 10-6. And we weren’t hot until the end with that team.

“Last year, was a very similar team. We just weren’t fortunate enough to get in the playoffs. If we would have gotten in the playoffs, I would have put my money on us.”