Montana’s Not in There, but They’re Still the 49ers : Pro football: This time it’s Young leading a fourth-quarter drive to a 27-24 victory over the Rams. Knox, players find solace in play.

They went into the final round down on points, needing a knockout and determined to keep throwing haymakers until one of the two was on the mat.

And for 15 memorable minutes, the Rams were an exciting team again, a confident, crazy, fascinating football team with a future. For one quarter, two-plus years of dreary football was left in the dust.

The San Francisco 49ers (4-1) on Sunday survived the attack, pulling out a dramatic 27-24 victory with two fourth-quarter Steve Young touchdown runs and a last-minute 21-yard field goal by Mike Cofer.

But after that last period, a quarter that seemed to last forever--after a combined six scores, three ties, one astonishing 39-yard run by Young through the Rams’ defense, one Ram interception return for a score, two consecutive critical Ram turnovers and countless other mini-dramas, the Rams (2-3) somehow seemed to gain stature in defeat they could not in victories against mediocre football teams.

“The Rams battled,” said Ricky Watters, 49er running back. “They came to our place and played a hell of a game.”

Said 49er Coach George Seifert: “The Los Angeles Rams have our respect after that game.”

Normally stoic Chuck Knox was flush with emotion--shaking, his voice cracking with what seemed to be a mixture of pride and frustration.

Asked if his young football team can build from this defeat, Knox was as emotional as he has been in his second term with the team.

“I just know this: They played their buns off today, and they brought everything they had to bring to the park,” Knox said. “And I’m proud of them for that.

“It’s a tough loss.”

In the locker room, after saying all the proper things about not ever taking joy in defeat, the Rams acknowledged that they had taken their biggest step toward respectability.

They forced San Francisco to make plays only the 49ers can make. The 49er defense was pushed to the point of collapse, and that was a huge leap from where the Rams have been since their 1989 NFC championship game loss on this same field.

“A loss is a loss, and you’re hurt by it,” safety Anthony Newman said. “But to know that we played well against a good football team--San Francisco’s one of the best football teams in the league, and we played them 59 minutes and lost in the last one--it gives us a lot of confidence.

“Some breaks are going to come our way, and we’re going to win some ballgames.”

The Rams’ bad breaks came on two turnovers involving tight end Jim Price in the fourth quarter. The first one was a catchable pass he tipped off linebacker Bill Romanowski to linebacker Keith DeLong. The second one, on the next series, was a fumble by Price, who had caught a pass deep over the middle.

Both resulted in 49er touchdowns.

“If we don’t get those two turnovers,” Seifert said, “we don’t win the game.”

So many things that have troubled the Rams this season were at least temporarily turned around in this game:

--Quarterback Jim Everett, who entered the game completing only 50.9% of his passes and with seven interceptions, completed a personal-best 83.3% Sunday, and his one interception was on a pass that should have been caught.

Everett completed his first 12 passes, finished 20 of 24 and flourished in the fourth quarter, leading the Rams to game-tying scores twice. The last score tied it, 24-24, with 1:50 to play, a nine-yard strike to Flipper Anderson in the back of the end zone.

Everett was powerless to lead another charge after Cofer’s field goal, which came with one second to play.

Said Seifert: “Everett cut us up pretty darn good. He seems to have a sense and feel for our coverages.”

--Tailback Cleveland Gary and the Rams’ running attack, which has been slowly rounding into shape, cut through the 49ers consistently. Gary gained 110 yards in 18 carries, his first 100-yard day since 1990 and the Rams’ first since Robert Delpino did it in Week 2 of last season.

--The Rams’ defense, which beat quarterbacks Browning Nagle of the Jets and Hugh Millen of the Patriots earlier this year, held up reasonably well against Young before he took the game into his own hands.

Young had been struggling before the fourth quarter and showed no improvement early in the period when he threw an interception that cornerback Robert Bailey returned 24 yards for a touchdown and a 17-10 Ram lead.

“It was thoroughly frustrating today,” Young said.

But Young, who heard boos from the crowd after that, struck on a scoring run of eight yards, and then his brilliant 39-yard run, scooting through, over and past at least five Ram defenders for a touchdown.

“Some people underestimate his speed,” rookie defensive tackle Sean Gilbert said. “He’s truly fast. I mean, for a quarterback, he’s got some tailback speed. And he’s agile, too.

“It’s not like he makes one cut. It’s like, screeeeech , he’s cutting on a dime, giving you change.”

“When I heard those boos, I was thinking, ‘Gee, we better start moving the football,’ ” Young said. “I mean, this is entertainment. They can boo if they want.”

--The Rams showed the kind of all-around punching power they have lacked since that 30-3 NFC championship game blowout three years ago: the ability to strike back and hold back a quality football team on its own turf, although the Rams now have won four times in the last five regular-season trips to Candlestick.

It was all set to be such a quiet little game.

The sun was out, the 49ers were ahead, 10-7, the fourth quarter was about to start, and the Candlestick Park crowd of 66,340 was settling in for a standard, by-the-book victory.

Then the Rams, the same team that had not scored more than 20 points since Nov. 10 of last season, the same team that has struggled to do anything offensively all year, simply took off.

They scored first in the fourth quarter, driving 77 yards in 12 plays to set up Tony Zendejas’ game-tying 33-yard field goal. Less than a minute later, Bailey cut in front of Jerry Rice to intercept Young’s ill-advised pass, weaved through the traffic and scored the touchdown that put the Rams ahead, 17-10.

After DeLong’s interception, Young completed three passes, then bolted in for an easy touchdown run to tie it.

After Price’s fumble, recovered by Johnnie Jackson, Young made his 39-yard run, juking Bill Hawkins, Newman, Pat Terrell and others, and running through Bailey to finish it off.

That made it 24-17 with 3:55 to play and Everett ready for more.

Everett and Gary moved the Rams into 49er territory by the two-minute warning, then Everett threw a pass to a diving Anderson for another game-tying score.

But the Rams had scored too quickly. With the clock nearing the one-minute mark, Young hit tight end Brent Jones, who was wide open over the middle, for a 43-yard gain to the Ram 31. Young hit Rice two plays later for 26 yards to the Ram five, and, with the clock run down to five seconds, Cofer made the short field goal for the victory.

“I’ve seen San Francisco come back to win games at the end a lot of times with Joe Montana. They’ve done it plenty,” Bailey said. “So we knew what to expect from them.

“But we still got bitten by the snake.”