49ers Pay Back Falcons Double for Last Season : NFC: Young throws three scoring passes and San Francisco forces six turnovers in 41-3 victory.

Steve Young said it was sort of double revenge for the San Francisco 49ers.

Young passed for 143 yards and three touchdowns and the 49ers came up with six turnovers while routing the Atlanta Falcons for the second time in three weeks, 41-3.

Two losses to the Falcons, including one on a desperation touchdown pass on the last play, kept the 49ers out of the playoffs last season.

“I think last year kind of really stuck with us,” Young said. “It cost us all the things that we worked for. It was not easy to sit on.”

The 49ers (7-2), who trounced Atlanta, 56-17, last month in San Francisco, moved back into a tie with New Orleans for first place in the NFC West.

“It was not a pretty sight,” Atlanta Coach Jerry Glanville said. “We made it occupational suicide. I thought we played hard and got after them, but you just can’t beat a good football team by giving the ball away.”

Young’s scoring passes covered 12 yards to Odessa Turner in the first quarter, 21 yards to Ricky Watters in the second and 19 yards to Jerry Rice in the final period.

Merton Hanks fielded a bouncing punt less than two minutes after Rice’s touchdown and returned it 48 yards for another score.

Tom Rathman scored the other touchdown on a two-yard run and Mike Cofer kicked field goals of 40 and 32 yards.

“Whenever you can turn the ball over and give it to our offense, that’s usually points on the board,” Bill Romanowski said. “That’s what our defense has got to do to win.”

Atlanta (3-6) got a 33-yard field goal from Norm Johnson with two seconds left in the half, cutting the lead to 14-3. It capped a 75-yard drive in which Billy Joe Tolliver accounted for all the yardage while completing six of eight passes.

The tone was set early when Keith Jones took a short pass from Tolliver and fumbled it away, Romanowski claiming it for the 49ers at the Atlanta 48.

It took nine plays for Young to convert it into a lead the 49ers never lost. Young completed four passes for 34 yards, including the touchdown pass to Turner with 4:54 left in the first quarter.

Young set up his 21-yard scoring pass to Watters with a 20-yarder to Brent Jones at the Atlanta 31 late in the second quarter.

Cofer’s first field goal capped a 25-yard drive, and the 32-yarder came after Andre Rison’s fumble was recovered by Michael McGruder on the Atlanta 35.

Deion Sanders dropped the ensuing kickoff and Amp Lee recovered at the Atlanta 26, setting up Rathman’s two-yard scoring run.