Forget The Catch: How Is The ‘Stick? : NFC: History won’t mean a thing to the 49ers and Cowboys today, but conditions on the field will be important.

They are not thinking about NFL history. This game is big enough without all that.

The San Francisco 49ers will play the Dallas Cowboys for the NFC Championship today at Candlestick Park in a matchup of the No. 1 offense in football against the No. 1 defense--the best two teams all season long.

“This is big on big,” 49er tailback Ricky Watters said, “a clash of the titans.”

Even without historical implications, the game on what promises to be a muddy field is the best of the NFL season, one that everybody has been anticipating for months.

But there’s a catch. Actually, The Catch.

Eleven years ago, the young, brash 49ers beat the established Cowboys on the soggy Candlestick turf by the grace of Dwight Clark’s leaping touchdown catch of a pass from Joe Montana with 51 seconds to play.

That earned the 49ers their first of four Super Bowl trips, and The Catch endures as one of the most famous plays in NFL history.

That game, according to some Cowboys, began their slide from the elite, which was halted only when Tom Landry was fired and replaced as coach by Jimmy Johnson, who has turned the team around in four seasons.

Of all the players in that game, only Montana is still on the same team, and he is the world’s most famous backup quarterback, behind Steve Young.

This year, the young, brash Cowboys are trying to complete the cycle and move past the postseason-proven 49ers, who have 24 players on their active roster with Super Bowl experience.

“This game has nothing to do with history,” said Dallas running back Emmitt Smith, who was 12 when The Catch was made.

“When we take the field, we’re not going to be thinking about the past. What happened a decade ago is dead and gone. It has no bearing on the game or the task at hand. I do get tired of hearing about it.”

The thing that might concern Dallas most isn’t replaying The Catch, but figuring out how to deal with the Candlestick bog.

This week, groundskeeper George Toma has done an emergency re-sodding of the field, which had been torn up by drenching rains and last week’s 49er victory over the Washington Redskins.

However, the forecast is for heavy rain. Almost an inch of rain fell in the Bay area Friday night.

Smith, the two-time NFL rushing champion, averages a full yard less per carry on grass than he does on artificial turf, and his slashing, cutback style could suffer without solid ground.

“If you get an Emmitt Smith on the AstroTurf, it can be a circus, but fortunately, we have him on the grass,” 49er nose tackle Michael Carter said.

But the Cowboys, dominant on the artificial turf of Texas Stadium last weekend against the Philadelphia Eagles, say that they can play on the real stuff, too.

“We don’t care if we play in the ice, sleet, rain or an earthquake,” said Dallas defensive tackle Tony Casillas, who practiced with his teammates on a wet field in Texas last week.

“It’s stupid to think we go around worrying about the condition of a field. Our challenge is the 49ers, not Mother Nature.”

The 49ers, the No. 1 offense in the league this season, struggled a bit in their 20-13 victory over the Redskins last weekend. Young, in his first playoff start, fumbled three times and threw an interception.

And during the past week, receiver Jerry Rice suggested that he preferred Montana as a quarterback over Young because Young doesn’t throw his way often enough, and when he does, the ball usually isn’t thrown properly.

Young, who has labored all season with the specter of Montana behind him, said he realizes that for San Francisco, being successful means nothing less than getting to the Super Bowl.

“I just don’t look at it as a shadow,” Young said. “I look at it as an opportunity to keep the ship going at the same speed with all of the class, success and everything else.”

The Cowboys had the No. 1 defense in the league this year, but Dallas’ fate depends on the ability of its offense to dominate the game as it did last Sunday in the 34-10 rout of Philadelphia.

Troy Aikman got his first playoff victory as an NFL quarterback, and, with two tall, talented receivers, Michael Irvin and Alvin Harper, he could target the 49ers’ defense, which gave up the third-most passing yards in the league.

“Overall, they’re very much like our offense,” 49er linebacker Keith DeLong said. “They’ve got the same type of personnel. Troy Aikman can run around, and he can do things that really hurt you.”

It’s no surprise that the 49ers (15-2) and the Cowboys (14-3) look at each other and see similarities.

“It’s a natural process,” 49er Coach George Seifert said. “It’s worked out the way it’s supposed to be: the two best teams in the championship game.”

NFC Notes

Defensive end Charles Haley was traded by San Francisco to Dallas early this season for a couple of draft picks because the 49ers no longer were able to tolerate his erratic behavior. With the Cowboys, Haley has become a team leader and has keyed a rebirth of their pass rush. “Our team chemistry is much better,” Coach George Seifert said about trading Haley. . . . Although the Cowboys gave up the fewest yards in the NFL, the 49ers yielded seven fewer points in the regular season than the Cowboys, 236 to 243.

NFC Championships

*1933 Chicago Bears 23, New York 21 *1934 New York 30, Chicago Bears 13 *1935 Detroit 26, New York 7 *1936 Green Bay 21, Boston 6 *1937 Washington 28, Chicago Bears 21 *1938 New York 23, Green Bay 17 *1939 Green Bay 27, New York 0 *1940 Chicago Bears 73, Washington 0 *1941 Chicago Bears 37, New York 9 *1942 Washington 14, Chicago Bears 6 *1943 Chicago Bears 41, Washington 21 *1944 Green Bay 14, New York 7 *1945 Cleveland 15, Washington 14 *1946 Chicago Bears 24, New York 14 *1947 Chicago Cardinals 28, Philadelphia 21 *1948 Philadelphia 7, Chicago Cardinals 0 *1949 Philadelphia 14, Rams 0 *1950 Cleveland 30, Rams 28 *1951 Rams 24, Cleveland 17 *1952 Detroit 17, Cleveland 7 *1953 Detroit 17, Cleveland 16 *1954 Cleveland 56, Detroit 10 *1955 Cleveland 38, Los Angeles 14 *1956 New York 47, Chicago Bears 7 *1957 Detroit 59, Cleveland 14 *1958 Baltimore 23, New York 17 OT *1959 Baltimore 31, New York 16 *1960 Philadelphia 17, Green Bay 13 *1961 Green Bay 37, New York 0 *1962 Green Bay 16, New York 7 *1963 Chicago 14, New York 10 *1964 Cleveland 27, Baltimore 0 *1965 Green Bay 23, Cleveland 12 *1966 Green Bay 34, Dallas 27 *1967 Green Bay 21, Dallas 17 *1968 Baltimore 34, Cleveland 0 *1969 Minnesota 27, Cleveland 7 *1970 Dallas 17, San Francisco 10 *1971 Dallas 14, San Francisco 3 *1972 Washington 26, Dallas 3 *1973 Minnesota 27, Dallas 10 *1974 Minnesota 14, Rams 10 *1975 Dallas 37, Rams 7 *1976 Minnesota 24, Rams 13 *1977 Dallas 23, Minnesota 6 *1978 Dallas 28, Los Angeles 0 *1979 Rams 9, Tampa Bay 0 *1980 Philadelphia 20, Dallas 7 *1981 San Francisco 28, Dallas 27 *1982 Washington 31, Dallas 17 *1983 Washington 24, San Francisco 21 *1984 San Francisco 23, Chicago 0 *1985 Chicago 24, Rams 0 *1986 N.Y. Giants 17, Washington 0 *1987 Washington 17, Minnesota 10 *1988 San Francisco 28, Chicago 3 *1989 San Francisco 30, Rams 3 *1990 N.Y. Giants 15, San Francisco 13 *1991 Washington 41, Detroit 10

Note: List includes NFL championship games from 1933 to 1969.