SUPER BOWL XXIX DAILY REPORT : Don’t Panic, but Rice Says This Could Be Last Trip to Title Game

Jerry Rice announces Monday night he might consider retiring if the San Francisco 49ers win the Super Bowl and 200 scribes rush to the telephones to stop the presses.

Had they asked, the 49er receiver also might have declared his intention to run for president or try his hand at baseball.

“I guess I kind of opened a can of worms,” said Rice a little sheepishly after walking off stage.

The routine question: What does a Super Bowl mean to you?

And the answer that started it all: “Well, this might be my last one, so it means a lot to me, and that’s the way I’m looking at it. . . . This might be my last. . . . I’m not going to say my last football game, but it’s so hard to get back to the Super Bowl now. It took five years to get back, so I’m looking at this game as my last Super Bowl so I can be focused and go out there and play my best football.”

OK, so he might be playing in his last Super Bowl. Then someone had to go and ask one more question: Would you consider retiring if San Francisco wins Sunday?

“Would I?” he said. “I might be tempted to think about it.”

Time to put headline writers on alert.

“I have never said that I might play another five or seven years,” Rice said, although that’s what he told Bay Area reporters a week ago. “I have told you guys I’m taking it year-by-year. If I’m still competitive and the fire is still inside, I will continue to play. If it’s gone, then I think it’s time to walk away from the game. I’m not saying I’m retiring. That’s a decision I’ll think about after the season is over.”

So what is he saying?

“When my career is over, I would like to hold every record possible,” he said. “It’s not going to be easy.”

Impossible, if he retires after the Super Bowl. Rice, who will earn an average of $2.681 million a year through 1987 if he continues to play, ranks third behind James Lofton and Steve Largent in reception yardage and third behind Art Monk and Largent in receptions.

“That desire, that fire is something you think about,” Rice added. “You have a lot of guys that can’t walk away from it, but I don’t think I would have that problem.”

Teammate Jessie Sapolu, asked to interpret Rice’s remarks, pursued his own headlines.

“I’ll be honest with you too, I’ll re-examine myself in the off-season,” Sapolu said. “I’m not saying I’m going to retire. . . .”

Enough said.

*

The San Diego Chargers arrived in Ft. Lauderdale Monday night, a day behind the 49ers, and without a whimper accepted their role as huge underdogs.

“Right now, I’m afraid,” said Stanley Richard, the Chargers’ starting free safety. “I don’t know if we’re going to come together as a defensive football team. We’re going to study and work hard, but there are going to be a lot of distractions. I’m afraid of our defense not playing as a unit. Will everyone do their homework?”

On paper, said defensive end Leslie O’Neal, “It looks like a landslide,” favoring the 49ers.

“I won’t say it’s going to take luck to beat them. No, the thing is they were supposed to be here and we were supposed to be 8-8 and many of our goals were centered around that kind of thinking. They have a better chance of winning because they have thought about this moment a lot longer than we have.”

*

Coach Bobby Ross said the Chargers remained an extra day in San Diego to work on their game plan and study additional videotape of the 49ers.

Defensive tackle Shawn Lee, the strongest player on the Chargers’ roster, has practiced at full strength the past three days after missing the AFC championship game because of knee surgery.

“He’s a force inside,” Ross said. “And he will start this game.”

*

The 49ers, meanwhile, practiced in sweatsuits and helmets at the University of Miami.

Defensive end Richard Dent, most valuable player of Super Bowl XX for Chicago, ran five plays with the first defensive unit at the conclusion of practice. Dent has been bothered by a sore knee.

“Richard has been cleared medically to play,” Coach George Seifert said. “It’s strictly a coaching decision now.”

*

Quarterback Steve Young, who many credit for leading the 49ers to the Super Bowl, points to cornerback Deion Sanders.

“It’s tough to give credit to one on a football team,” Young said. “But I think he culminated the efforts of (president) Carmen Policy to bring in players who are willing to take responsibility for the team.

“They are the guys, who say, ‘If we lose, come see me. If we win, come see me.’ The more guys you have like that on a team, the more successful you’re going to be. Deion being the ultimate person in that way, he came in and said, ‘I will make the difference. And if I don’t, come see me.’ ”

*

Interesting how the smallest of things can move the biggest of men.

Charger linebacker David Griggs said that much of his team’s motivation comes from a Saturday night speech given earlier this year by Ross.

He described the speech in answer to a question about the differences between Ross and Griggs’ former coach, Don Shula.

“I remember Bobby telling us that winning a championship is not that important to him, that he’s won a national championship before with Georgia Tech,” Griggs said. “He said that he wanted this team to win for ourselves . Not many coaches would say that. That really stuck with us.”

Griggs, who struggled at defensive end for five seasons with Shula’s Miami Dolphins before signing as a free agent with the Chargers and moving to linebacker, prefers his new coach.

“Don was very businesslike; he pushed his players very hard. Sometimes that was good, sometimes that was bad,” Griggs said. “Bobby is very personable. Guys who haven’t been other places maybe don’t appreciate him, but they should.”

*

Ronnie Lott, in town doing promotional work like many other NFL stars, said that next season will be his last.

Lott, a former 49er and Raider safety who is now with the New York Jets, said he will finish the final year on his contract and call it quits.

“Because the Jets gave me the opportunity to continue my career, I want to end it there,” said Lott, 35, who will play in his 15th season next year. “And next season being my last season, it just feels right. It’s something in my gut tells me it’s time to move on.”

*

How loose are the 49ers?

Seifert was forced to stand up in the middle of their first team dinner here Sunday night and announce that there would be no more playing of video games during meals. The noise and laughter around the hotel-provided machines, according to Seifert, was unbearable.

*

Quotation corner:

William Floyd, 49er fullback, on playing for Florida State in 1993 and San Francisco in ‘94: “What could be better than winning (college football’s) national championship and then coming back to Florida and winning the Super Bowl?”

Barry Switzer, Dallas Cowboy coach, on what it meant to lose the NFC title game: “I don’t think, with free agency, any team is ever going to have this chance again, to win three in a row.”

Young, on backing up Joe Montana at other Super Bowls: “I hated it. You want to contribute--you feel like an idiot. Let me go on the kickoff team or something. Let me get out there and run into somebody.”