PRO FOOTBALL / PLAYOFF REPORT : NFC : Shanahan’s Job Is With 49ers--for Now

A reported candidate to succeed Dan Reeves as coach of the Denver Broncos, Mike Shanahan, offensive coordinator for the 49ers and former Raider coach, said: “As an assistant coach, being a head coach again is something you definitely think about. But as a football coach, once you start looking at your next job, you stop doing your current job. I can’t think about Denver or any place else until this job is done.”

The loss, and its similarity to the rest of their star-crossed season, left many Washington players with a new appreciation for last year’s Super Bowl championship--and the lengths to which they had to go this season.

“Last year was one of those years where you draw things up, go out and execute and stay healthy and it all sort of falls together,” said quarterback Mark Rypien, MVP of the Super Bowl last January. “Things changed, and all of us are frustrated. But I’m proud of all the guys that played through the tough times. No one on this team ever quit.”

A big play Saturday came in the fourth quarter when Rypien lost the handle trying to give the ball to running back Brian Mitchell on a trap play. San Francisco linebacker Mike Walter recovered, and Mike Cofer’s 33-yard field goal seven minutes later doomed Washington’s hopes to repeat as NFL champions.

“That one play, that shows you our whole season,” Mitchell said. “I come up and I see a hole, a big hole, and a possible touchdown, and I don’t get the ball. All year, we’d get on a roll, and boom, we’d get somebody injured, we’d get on another roll, and boom, somebody gets injured.”

Redskin defensive coordinator Richie Petitbon is considered a strong candidate to replace Mike Ditka, his teammate on Chicago’s 1963 championship team, as the Bears’ coach. After Saturday’s game, Petitbon said he would not contact the Bears--”I don’t think that’s the proper thing to do”--even though Ditka’s handwritten appeal to George Halas after the 1981 season played a key role in Halas giving Ditka the job.

San Francisco linebacker Roy Foster from USC wrote “South-Central L.A.” on both stockings. . . . Upset with himself for permitting John Taylor’s touchdown catch to travel through his hands, Washington defensive back AJ Johnson said: “Right through my hands. Right through my hands. Maybe if I’d made that play, things would have been different.” . . . Gibbs on Rypien: “He brought his guts with him out there today. He did some good things and some things that he’d probably like to have back.”

The temper of 49er Coach George Seifert flared during the fourth quarter, when he straight-armed 267-pound Redskin linebacker Andre Collins near the sideline.

“I looked up, and all of a sudden he was right in my face,” Seifert said. “I just reacted. But I honestly couldn’t tell you what he said to me or what I said to him. I honestly don’t remember.”