PRO FOOTBALL DAILY REPORT : NFC PLAYOFFS : Rainstorms Send 49ers to Arizona

Heavy rains are driving the San Francisco 49ers out of state for their key practices leading up to Sunday’s NFC championship game against the Dallas Cowboys.

The team, which cut short its Monday workout because of rain, will leave tonight for Phoenix, where it will practice Wednesday and Thursday at the Arizona Cardinals’ facilities. The 49ers will return to practice at their Santa Clara headquarters on Friday.

Northern California has been hit by a series of rain storms, and the deluge has turned the team’s grass practice fields into a quagmire. Nearby alternate sites also have been saturated.

“It’s just overwhelming. These storms are supposed to be stacked up,” San Francisco Coach George Seifert said. “We don’t have any fields that we can really practice on because of the amount of rain that we’ve had. We felt as though we had to have two good quality days (of practice), and the organization wants to do whatever it can to see that we have an opportunity to win this ball game. This is best thing we could do, and the Cardinals have been most generous in allowing us to use their facility.”

Center Bart Oates said the midweek move was a disruption, but the team should be able to adjust to it.

“It’s a distraction, but we’re all big boys,” Oates said. “We should be able to accept it, adjust to it and realize it’s for our own good. We’re going to go down there for a couple of days of good preparation that we wouldn’t have had here.”

An out-of-town move to prepare for the title game would not be unprecedented for the 49ers. Bad weather and practice-field conditions forced the 49ers to practice in Anaheim before the 1981 NFC championship game in which San Francisco beat Dallas for the only time in five previous meetings for the conference title.

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Filling garbage bags and boxes, the Chicago Bears cleaned out lockers and loaded belongings, heading into an off-season that promises more changes for a team still far from the top in the NFL.

“A lot of guys are uncertain walking out of here if it will be their last time. That’s kind of disappointing because you’ve grown close to a lot of guys and been through a lot of turmoil and stress,” said quarterback Steve Walsh, one of the Bears’ 15 unrestricted free agents.