49ers Take the Intimidation Factor Away From Raiders : Pro football: Following easy victory, a confident San Francisco team questions the game plan its opponent used.

Before Monday night’s showdown, many NFL experts said that the Raiders and the San Francisco 49ers could be playing a Super Bowl preview.

This viewpoint, however, was not heard in the 49er locker room after their 44-14 blowout victory as many of the San Francisco players had more questions about the Raider game plan than their talent.

“The Raiders tried to intimidate us and that just didn’t work,” linebacker Gary Plummer said. “That’s the first thing they did wrong. We just came out and dominated them.”

When the statistics sheet was passed around, the 49ers looked in amazement at how they had outgained the Raiders, 448 to 181, in total yardage. They also pointed out that they had 24 first downs to the Raiders’ 12.

“Nothing was easy out there, but you just can’t stop us,” running back Ricky Watters said. “If you try to key on me and our running game, our passing game will beat you. If you try to stop our pass, we’ll beat you on the ground. Any way you look at it, you have to give something up.”

Besides being victimized by Jerry Rice’s three-touchdown, record-setting game, the Raiders also had problems stopping the rest of the 49ers’ weapons.

Whenever they slowed Watters, who rushed for only 37 yards but had five catches for 55 yards, they got burned by players like tight end Brent Jones, who had four catches for 59 yards and two touchdowns.

To make matters worse, San Francisco quarterback Steve Young had plenty of time to complete 19 of 32 passes for 308 yards and to scramble for 51 yards in five carries.

“This team is just loaded,” Watters said. “We all work together so well, it is just great once we get into games.”

Going into the game, the Raiders figured to have problems slowing the 49er offense, but the feeling was that San Francisco would have an equal number of problems stopping the Raider passing attack.

With a core of speedy receivers and the passing combination of Jeff Hostetler to Tim Brown, the Raiders were expected to stretch the 49er secondary with a vertical air attack.

That plan never materialized.

“We knew they had a lot of big-time threats, with so much speed,” San Francisco safety Tim McDonald said. “But I was very surprised to not see them take some shots.”

From their opening drive, the Raiders used their deep-ball threats as decoys, causing the 49er secondary to line up nearly five yards deeper than usual.

“I kept expecting them to just let it go, but maybe since they saw us pretty deep, they decided to try and establish their running game,” McDonald said. “But that didn’t work because our guys up front really got after them early. After that, I really didn’t know what they were doing out there.”

The Raider rushing attack was not the answer to open things up against the 49ers, as the running backs gained only 34 yards in 20 carries for an average of 1.7 yards.

“I respect the Raiders, but they’ve got to realize that they can’t intimidate just by putting on their silver and black uniforms,” Plummer said. “They try to be physical and use cheap shots at times, but this is the NFL and that doesn’t work all the time.”

The Raiders, who dropped four passes, had 147 net yards passing, Brown leading the team with five receptions for only 42 yards. The longest completion was a 30-yard pass to Rocket Ismail, who gained most of that after the catch.

While the 49ers celebrated their stunning victory, there was concern about the Raiders’ Napoleon McCallum, who left the field on a stretcher after dislocating his knee on a tackle by Ken Norton Jr.

“I really didn’t know what had happened until someone called for me not to move,” Norton said. “It’s very unfortunate. I just know that he was real quiet when he went down. He just didn’t move. I wish him luck and my prayers are for him.”