49ers Sure Aren’t Complaining Now : San Francisco: Everyone is happy and everything is clicking for a team that has won five straight.

San Francisco offensive tackle Steve Wallace sat on his locker room chair and thought back to six weeks ago, when Steve Young’s left thumb was hurting, Jerry Rice and Ricky Watters were complaining, and the 49ers were struggling to a 3-3 start.

“Back then, no one thought we would be in the position we’re in now,” Wallace said. “Now we’re in control of everything.”

With ill tempers and injuries nothing more than a distant memory, the 49ers extended their winning streak to five games with a 35-10 victory over the Rams Sunday at Anaheim Stadium.

Young, whose injured thumb on his passing hand forced him to struggle with nine interceptions in his first five games, burned a limping Ram secondary by completing 26 of 32 passes (81%) for 462 yards and four touchdowns.

How about Rice, who complained along with Watters that they weren’t getting the ball enough early in the season? Rice caught eight passes for 166 yards and two touchdowns, including a one-handed grab for 48 yards in the third quarter. Watters chipped in with 82 yards receiving and 47 rushing and two touchdowns.

“Maybe I’m a little bit of a pessimist,” Watters said. “But I think we can do even better.”

How much better?

“Nobody has seen our best game yet,” tight end Brent Jones said.

Sounds kind of scary for the rest of the league.

“I hope we’re scary,” Jones added.

With Sunday’s blowout of the Rams, along with a 42-7 pounding of New Orleans last Monday night, the 49ers have sent that frightening message to the rest of the league: Don’t get in the way of our offense.

The 49ers rolled up 539 yards total offense, averaging 8.2 yards a play against a Ram defense ranked 19th in the league in average yards allowed from scrimmage (325.7 a game).

Young had the best passing day of his career, bettering his previous mark of 449 yards last season against Buffalo. Rice’s two touchdown catches leaves him four shy of tying Jim Brown’s league record for career touchdowns (126). San Francisco punter Klaus Wilmsmeyer took the first half off and punted only three times in the second half.

“This is really the kind of thing that happens when our team communicates,” Young said. “It really makes a difference.

“Today, I probably could not have played any better. Today was a good day and a solid day for our offense.”

Said fullback Tom Rathman, playing in second game since returning from a shoulder injury: “We have a lot of weapons and we’re hitting on all cylinders. We just need to keep carrying that over to next week and the next week and the next week. We do that each week, we’ll keep winning and be a force when the playoffs roll around.”

Just how much of a force remains to be seen. Earlier in the week, San Francisco Coach George Seifert tabbed Dallas, the defending Super Bowl champion, as the team to beat in the league, thus taking the pressure off the 49ers.

But Dallas has lost its past two games and has struggled with injuries to tailback Emmitt Smith and quarterback Troy Aikman. The 49ers, meanwhile, have outscored their past four opponents, 162-55.

“Dallas is still the greatest,” Jones said, echoing his coach’s comments. “They’ve just been unlucky. They’re still the toughest team, I think.

“I don’t think we’re trying to send a message to the Cowboys. I thought we had a great year last year, and they came in and beat us in our place in the NFC championship game. Messages really don’t matter a whole lot until the playoffs start.”

But what does matter is the home-field advantage throughout the playoffs, which the 49ers have quietly been eyeballing the past few weeks. They are 8-3 and tied and tied with the New York Giants for the best record in the conference. Dallas, Detroit, Green Bay and New Orleans are all lurking one game behind at 7-4.

The 49ers have the advantage of a soft schedule down the stretch. Their remaining opponents have a combined record of 24-30 and three of their final five games are at Candlestick Park, where they are 5-0 this season.

Next up is Cincinnati, which got its first victory of the season Sunday against the Raiders. Then it’s road games at Atlanta, 5-6 and playing well since the return of cornerback Deion Sanders, and Detroit, losers of its past two games and without Barry Sanders, who is out for the season with a knee injury suffered Thursday against Chicago.

They round out the regular-season schedule with home games against Houston and Philadelphia.

“We still can’t take any of those teams lightly,” linebacker John Johnson said. “Detroit’s going to win some games without Barry, and we’ve already seen Philadelphia win without Randall.

“But we’ve been playing well lately. And this is the time when everything needs to come together.”