PRO FOOTBALL / BOB OATES : The Rebuilding of Cowboys Might Prove to Be Complete

For several months, it has seemed inevitable to many that the game’s best two teams would reach the NFC championship round--the last stop before the Super Bowl--in San Francisco next Sunday.

And they will be there.

Who will win? Well, it has the appearance of a toss-up. But if you’re looking for reasons to pick the Dallas Cowboys, who easily eliminated the Philadelphia Eagles during Sunday’s semifinal round, here’s one:

Jimmy Johnson, the Dallas coach, has made more improvements in his team this season than 49er Coach George Seifert has been able to make in his.

In the last couple of years, Johnson has taken over as the NFL’s most productive talent scout. And at one position in particular, defensive end, he has jumped ahead of the 49ers--who traded him Charles Haley.

The 49ers would be an obvious favorite if Seifert still had Haley and Ronnie Lott, the safety who left for the Raiders when the 49ers failed to protect him in Plan B free agency.

It is Haley, an aggressive pass rusher, who gives the Cowboys a chance.

“We’re proud of our (pass rusher),” Seifert said the other day, meaning Tim Harris--and it’s true that Harris, a former Green Bay star, was a valuable 49er acquisition.

But the problem for Harris is that he can be double-teamed.

With Haley and Harris both in the same pass rush, that can’t be done.

Last summer, shortly before the Cowboys’ first game, Johnson made the two personnel moves that gave him a Super Bowl defense--trading for Haley and Pittsburgh safety Thomas Everett.

Any other coach could have done the same. It was Johnson who got it done.

It was also Johnson who, one spring, traded up in the draft to get running back Emmitt Smith, and who has brought together the fastest team in the league.

“The fastest and the youngest,” Johnson said.

That’s true, and that’s the 49ers’ edge: more playoff experience.

*

Those watching the first 49er-Cowboy game of the season will be comparing quarterbacks who could hardly be more different.

Steve Young, the left-handed 49er who started a playoff game for the first time Saturday, has been making big plays all season.

Troy Aikman, the Cowboy who started a playoff game for the first time Sunday, is more proficient than Young in the art of making little plays.

And little ones are easier to execute than big ones.

The quarterback questions are these:

--Against the sound Dallas defense, can Young make enough big plays?

--Can Aikman take advantage of the weaker San Francisco pass defense?

--In other words, how well do the quarterbacks match up with what they have to beat?

*

One reason for the 49ers to fear the Cowboys is that during his short Dallas career, Johnson has shown that he has an eye for coaches as well as players.

No NFL opponent is ahead of the Cowboys in the two most vital staff positions, offensive and defensive coordinator.

Dallas’ are Norv Turner, the offensive coach whose several exotic draw plays and screen passes won Sunday’s game by beating the Eagle blitz, and Dave Wannstedt, the defensive coach whose schemes fooled quarterback Randall Cunningham and the others in the Eagle offense.

Turner and Wannstedt are both former USC coaches, both are on the way to head coaching jobs in the NFL, and among other things both were born during the same week in 1952.

How important is coaching? Once more the answer seemed clear during the season’s third Cowboy-Eagle game--in which Dallas again lined up the more disciplined team.

How important is discipline? On one undisciplined play after another, the Eagles showed that they weren’t ready to compete on this level:

In shotgun formation, the Philadelphia center once snapped the ball when Cunningham was looking the other way. The Eagles lost another down when their offensive line was a second late off the ball after their center missed the snap count. On third and 12, they completed an 11-yard pass.

And when, in the playoff pressure early on, the Dallas punter was nervously kicking line drives, the Eagles failed to block Dallas’ coverage men, and thus failed to get the long runbacks they deserved.

Johnson, Turner and Wannstedt seemed a cut above their opposition.

*

The Eagles in their big games this year have been bothered by what seems an incompatible marriage between their coach and quarterback.

As the head coach, Rich Kotite likes to call his team’s offensive plays, and therefore he plainly needs, and no doubt wants, a conventional quarterback, a compliant player such as Aikman, who will try his best to execute the signals as called.

On the field, however, Cunningham is anything but a typical NFL quarterback. The Cunningham long suit is extemporizing from down to down, taking off on a broken-field gallop when he sees a running lane, or scrambling awhile before throwing a long pass.

For example, on his best two plays against the Dallas defense, consecutive plays during the second half, Cunningham first ran for a first down, then scrambled and threw for a touchdown.

It wasn’t enough, because in conventional situations, he didn’t do enough.

Cunningham is an accurate passer--but he wants to do it his way.

So he belongs on a team in which the head coach isn’t the signal-caller. He belongs on a team that can take advantage of his many assets.

Kotite belongs on a team with an entirely different kind of passer.

Fortunately, they might be able to get a divorce this year. In the new free agent market, Kotite, surely, could find the type he prefers.

And Cunningham could find a more congenial home.

*

The player who launched the free-agent era, tight end Keith Jackson, demonstrated Sunday the kind of talent improvement that any NFL team can make as soon as next season.

It is doubtful if quarterback Dan Marino could have led the Miami Dolphins to their easy victory over the San Diego Chargers without the big early touchdowns by Jackson, whose departure from Philadelphia in a free agency court test case last summer hurt the Eagles.

The Chargers, of course, have been a bit overrated lately. In their first try against a veteran playoff team, facing a veteran playoff quarterback in Marino, the Chargers were in over their heads--in part because their effective new quarterback, Stan Humphries, was making his first playoff start despite an injured shoulder.

It won’t be long, however, before the Chargers are heard from again. They still appear to be the team that will eventually end the NFC’s long run of Super Bowl championships.

In General Manager Bobby Beathard, the Chargers have one of the game’s great talent scouts. In Alex Spanos, they have a wealthy owner who seems willing to put his money where Beathard tells him to put it.

The Chargers could reach the Super Bowl as soon as 12 months from now, and win it 24 months from now.

*

The Buffalo Bills appear to have the edge over the Dolphins next Sunday from two standpoints.

They are the better team. And they are on a roll on the road.

The Dolphins will have the edge in two different respects.

They are playing at home. And Marino is the league’s best passer.

All that makes the game appear even, but it probably isn’t. Buffalo has the look of a team that’s on its way to a third consecutive Super Bowl, where, this time, the Bills won’t have quite as much to beat.