PRO FOOTBALL DAILY REPORT : NFC : Dr. Johnson Pronounces Smith Well

Jimmy Johnson, coach of the Dallas Cowboys, leaves no doubt about Emmitt Smith’s role in Sunday’s NFC championship game against the San Francisco 49ers.

“Emmitt will play and he won’t have shoulder problems,” Johnson said Tuesday. “I have pronounced him healthy.”

The NFL’s leading rusher re-injured his shoulder while blocking and was held out of most of the second half of Sunday’s 27-17 victory over the Green Bay Packers. Smith is receiving round-the-clock care to reduce the soreness in the shoulder he separated in the last game of the season against the New York Giants.

The Cowboys aren’t the same team without him. They lost their first two games without Smith during a contract holdout.

Smith said he won’t hold back against the 49ers.

“I did feel a little out of sync against the Packers,” he said. “I had some problems holding the ball. I won’t take any pain killers. I have the fear of hurting my shoulder and not realizing it’s hurt. It’s getting better every day. I’ll be ready on Sunday.”

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Within 16 minutes of going on sale, the last 10,000 tickets for Sunday’s game at Irving, Tex., were sold out.

AFC

Chiefs’ Schottenheimer: Forget the Past

The Kansas City Chiefs are 3-0 in AFL/AFC championship games. Their coach is 0-2.

It’s not only that Marty Schottenheimer’s Cleveland Browns lost both AFC title games they played under his command. It’s the way they lost that causes wonder about him.

First came The Drive: Denver quarterback John Elway’s famous 98-yard march in Cleveland Stadium led to a 23-20 overtime loss for the Browns in the 1986 title game.

Second came The Fumble: Ernest Byner dropped the ball as he was about to cross the goal line with the winning touchdown. A few seconds later the Broncos had won, 38-33.

At least this time it won’t be the Broncos and Elway.

It might be Kansas City and Joe Montana.

“What we’ve got to do is go in with the idea that the task is to play as well as we can against the Buffalo Bills and not consider past circumstances, the products of failure of success,” Schottenheimer said. “If you get into that sort of thing, you’re going to lose focus on the task at hand. Those things were a long time ago.”

Still, his wife, Pat, did, ever so delicately, raise the issue once this week.

“Marty, maybe the third time’s the charm,” she told her husband.

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The Cleveland Browns promoted running backs coach Steve Crosby to offensive coordinator, giving him the title to go with the role he played during the second half of the 1993 season.

Crosby, 43, coached the Browns’ running backs for one year under Schottenheimer in 1985 and returned to that job when Bill Belichick became Cleveland’s coach in 1991. He assumed the position--but not the title--of offensive coordinator at midseason, about the same time Bernie Kosar was cut and replaced by Vinny Testaverde as the Browns’ starting quarterback. Crosby called the Browns’ plays during the last seven games of the season.

The Browns’ offense improved over the final seven games, averaging 335 yards per game, compared with 263.7 yards per game in the first nine. But Cleveland lost five of those last seven games.