THE NFL / BILL PLASCHKE : Packers Need to Learn That Cowboys Aren’t 49ers

Of this season’s marquee NFL game here Sunday between the Green Bay Packers and Dallas Cowboys, only two predictions can be safely made:

It will be a hoot and a howl.

Brett Favre, Packer quarterback, will do something that will make you say, “Hot damn!” Just the way he says.

Troy Aikman, Cowboy quarterback, will do something that will make you want to stick a wad of snuff under your lower lip and say, “Mmmmmmm.” Just the way he does.

Robert Brooks, Packer receiver, is going to bust something.

Emmitt Smith, Cowboy running back, is going to bust something else.

Reggie White, Packer defensive end, is going to make you shiver.

Deion Sanders, Cowboy everything, is going to make you laugh.

Who will win? Not so easy.

The Packers played a nearly perfect game in upsetting the San Francisco 49ers last week.

If they play that same type of game against the Cowboys, they will be knocked clear to Amarillo.

On defense, if they put only three men at the line of scrimmage and use seven defensive backs, as they did against the 49ers, Smith will rush for 200 yards and three touchdowns.

On offense, if they try to send their fast guys deep and throw underneath to tight ends Mark Chmura and Keith Jackson, as they did against the 49ers, they will score about three points.

Perhaps you have heard of Darren Woodson? He is playing as if he is the game’s best strong safety again. With him roaming the middle of the field, the Packer tight ends don’t stand a chance.

So what can the Packers do to fulfill the dreams of millions of NFL traditionalists, cold-weather types and just plain geezers?

On defense, they can stack the line against Smith, whose most complete game of the season was against the Packers. They can then use single coverage and make Aikman beat them.

We don’t know if the battered, quietly struggling quarterback can do it. We don’t know if he knows.

On offense, they can give the ball 30 times to Edgar Bennett until the suspect Cowboy run defense crumbles. In between runs, they can send everybody deep and let Favre work his magic.

The Packers run the type of West Coast offense that the Cowboys often dominate with their quick front seven. They must modify that short passing attack to have a chance.

If you think a hot quarterback can carry a team to a championship--as Steve Young of the 49ers did last year and Aikman did in 1992--then you will bet the Packers.

If you think strong coaching can carry a team to a title--as happened with Bill Walsh’s 49ers’ in the 1980s--then you will bet the Packers.

But if you think this league is just too difficult for teams to take more than one giant step at a time. . . . If you think nerve is as important as strong necks. . . . If you think Coach Barry Switzer is now smart enough not to cost his team as he did last year . . . then maybe you pick Dallas.

Us? We watched kicker Lin Elliott cost the Kansas City Chiefs a shot at the Super Bowl last week, and we think trend.

We see that the Cowboys’ Chris Boniol has made 28 consecutive field goals, including a last-second, game-winning, 35-yarder against the New York Giants on an icy field in December that might have saved the Cowboys’ season.

We see that the Packers’ Chris Jacke hasn’t had to make a big kick in more than a year, and has missed three of his last 10, including a low one that was blocked in San Francisco last week.

We see this being a field goal game.

Dallas wins in the final minute.

The Packers next year.

OH, YEAH, THAT GAME

Not that the Pittsburgh Steelers should beat the Indianapolis Colts by a bunch in the AFC championship Sunday, but if they don’t, then the following things are true:

--Bill Cowher, Steeler coach, is not one of the league’s best big-game schemers.

--The Steelers do not have the league’s best big-game defense.

--Neil O’Donnell, Steeler quarterback, does not care that he is a free agent next month and can make thousands more with every completion.

--The entire team has forgotten how it choked away the AFC title game at home to an underdog team last year.

The prediction here is easy.

Kevin Greene, the Steelers’ wonderful linebacker, is assigned to “spy” Colt quarterback Jim Harbaugh. Everywhere Harbaugh goes, Greene goes.

It will be the first time in the AFC playoffs that somebody has thought of this. The wisdom of such a move will become evident by halftime, when Harbaugh is limping and looking at Lamont Crockett to carry the offense. Or is that Zack Warren? Whoever.

We already counted the Colts out once this year, but, like most of the population of Kansas City, we didn’t count on another Marty Schottenheimer-managed meltdown.

This one won’t be that close. Erric Pegram and Bam Morris will combine for 200 rushing yards, O’Donnell will complete 75% of his passes for 180 yards, and the Steelers will win by 21.

BURNED CORN

All it took was one loss in one football game to turn one of America’s nicest cities ugly.

Two days after the Chiefs’ loss Sunday, people in the Kansas City telephone directory named Lin Elliott, or just L. Elliott, began getting obscene phone calls.

Five days after the loss, a Kansas City counseling center actually held a program to help fans get over their depression.

The heat was turned up by the words of Chief Derrick Thomas, appearing on teammate Neil Smith’s radio show the day after the loss.

He was heard to say that if Elliott walked into the downtown restaurant from where the show was being broadcast, Thomas was going to “kick his. . . .”

How about those 148 rushing yards you yielded to a team without Marshall Faulk, Derrick?

And while you are willing to squash a little bug like Elliott, why won’t you do something about that big dunce Steve Bono?

The only thing the Chief loss proved is why Bono, until this season, has always been a backup, and why he will soon be one again. He wasn’t only bad, he had his worst game of the season in the biggest game of the season--completing 11 of 25 passes for 122 yards with one interception for each of Elliott’s missed field goals.

The pressure, obviously unfamiliar and uncomfortable, took away his arm and his eyesight. At 33, he might have passed the time when he can adjust.

Schottenheimer, the Chief coach who probably just reduced his stay in Kansas City to one more year, said Bono will be the starter going into training camp next year.

Yeah, and Elliott is going to be the kicker.

THE ANTI-ROCKY

Quarterback Randall Cunningham says he wants to return to the Philadelphia Eagles. Right.

And if he does, will he promise not to miss an extra day of work as he did during the playoffs? Will he promise to study his plays the week of a big game? And will he please, oh please, give the Eagles his home phone number?

Here’s what happened two weeks ago in what are certain to be Cunningham’s final days as an Eagle: He left the team’s temporary training facility at Vero Beach early the Wednesday morning before the NFC second-round playoff game against the Cowboys to be with his wife, who was delivering their first child that day in Las Vegas, their hometown.

He stayed in Las Vegas on Thursday. And Friday. And he didn’t return to Vero Beach until Saturday morning, hours before the team left for Dallas.

Did he bother to take his playbook with him? No. Could the team call and tell him to come back? No, because he hadn’t given them his home phone number and would not return their numerous calls to his beeper.

Then, of course, the worst nightmare for everyone came true. Cunningham had to play against the Cowboys because starter Rodney Peete left the game after one quarter because of a concussion.

Afterward, when asked if Cunningham would be coming back next year, sources said something to the effect of, “Are you out of your ever-lovin’ mind?”

QUICK KICKS

ALL’S FAIR IN LOVE AND . . . : Jeffrey Lange, the New Jersey man who was so popular that more than a dozen friends fingered him as a snowball-throwing culprit in the Meadowlands, will love hearing this:

One of the first stoolies to phone the New York Giants after seeing Lange’s photo in a newspaper was his former wife.

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FINE OF THE YEAR: John Taylor spent the game Dec. 3 between his San Francisco 49ers and Buffalo Bills standing on the 49er sideline in street clothes because of his bruised hip.

Imagine his surprise when he was notified the next day that he had been fined $10,000 for uniform violation.

“What are they talking about, out of uniform?” Taylor said. “I didn’t even dress.”

It turns out he was cited for wearing a Nike sweatshirt underneath a 49ers’ Reebok jacket. The fine was later dropped, but Taylor said such episodes have reaffirmed his decision to retire.

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THIN-CRUSTED CORNERBACK: Dale Carter, Kansas City Chief cornerback, was arrested recently when Kansas City police stopped him for an alleged speeding violation and discovered he had an outstanding warrant.

Unbeknown to Carter, in October a woman had accused him of throwing a pizza at her.

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WARNING TO COLTS: Not that Kansas City Coach Marty Schottenheimer has played the patsy for some mediocre clubs in the playoffs, but teams that have beaten Schottenheimer’s teams in the playoffs are 1-8 in their next playoff games.

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TWELVE HOURS: That’s how long it took the embattled Minnesota Vikings to cut linebacker Broderick Thomas after he was arrested for drunk driving and carrying a concealed weapon.

So much for that three-year, $5.8-million contract he signed last season.

The moral here is, if you must drink and drive, and carry a gun, don’t do it just days after one of your teammates has allegedly beaten one of his allegedly two wives.

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TOUGH ACT TO FOLLOW: There is nothing the geniuses at Super Bowl XXX can do at Sun Devil Stadium that will top what the Fiesta Bowl people did during the NCAA national championship football game at Tempe, Ariz.

They announced a crowd of more than 79,000, a facility record.

Problem is, the place has only 76,000 seats.

They must have counted the people in the halftime show.