SUPER BOWL XXIII : CINCINNATI BENGALS vs. SAN FRANCISCO 49ERS : A Look at the Weapons and How They’re Deployed

MIAMI —  Boomer Esiason of the Cincinnati Bengals, the blond quarterback who stands 6 feet 5 inches and weighs more than 225 pounds, is one of the largest successful southpaws the world has known.

Joe Montana of the San Francisco 49ers, who has trouble keeping 190 pounds on a frame that spans only 6 feet 2 inches, is one of the finest finesse passers in National Football League history.

Their similarity as offensive football players--the way Montana, 32, and Esiason, 27, earn touchdowns--is greater, of course, than their differences. But it is their differences that light them up.

And much the same is true of their teammates. This is a year when it seems more helpful to compare the Super Bowl teams side by side than to examine them separately.

For example, Esiason is a big-gun pocket passer. Encircled by some of the heaviest and most active blockers in America, Esiason has the size and, specifically, the arm to do the one thing that Montana doesn’t do so well--fire long, hard passes out of the pocket.

Montana, by contrast, brings a kind of magic to football. Where Esiason batters away at the game, Montana flows and flies.

The 49er quarterback has a rare feel for his sport as an art form. When, on Jan. 8, he broke open the National Conference title game at Chicago with a throw to Jerry Rice, he didn’t just routinely throw the ball toward a closely guarded teammate. He threw it to a spot where Rice could, first, jump for it, beating one defensive back, and then come down in a position to accelerate away from the other on a 61-yard play.

Asked if this is luck or instinct, 49er halfback Roger Craig said: “It’s an extra sense. (Montana) just has a sixth sense about where to throw the ball.

“(One day) when I was running a slant-out, slant-in (pattern) over the goal line, I wanted the ball low where I could slide into the end zone. I suddenly realized that against (that particular defense), I couldn’t score on any other kind of throw. And that’s right where he threw it.”

As for Esiason, the big Bengal field general could easily win Super Bowl XXIII with a big game. He has the arm. And he’s a steady, on-the-field coach in his team’s imaginative no-huddle offense.

On no-huddle plays, the Cincinnati quarterback often stands at the line of scrimmage and speaks to every teammate before the snap, telling them all what to do.

With Esiason this season, the Bengals were No. 1 in the NFL in total offense.

With Montana, the 49ers were only No. 2. But this is Esiason’s first Super Bowl. What he lacks is Montana’s big-game experience, Montana’s maturity, Montana’s magic.

THE AIR OFFENSIVES

Superficially, the Cincinnati and San Francisco passing attacks are much the same. They were designed by good friends who used to work together--Bill Walsh, coach of the 49ers, and the man who was his assistant in San Francisco for 4, 1979-82, Sam Wyche of the Bengals.

It was Wyche, in fact, who coached Walsh’s pass offense in Super Bowl XVI, when the 49ers turned back the Bengals, 26-21.

It can be assumed that, as usual, both teams will script the game’s first 25 plays, deviating only in emergencies--after which they will go right back to the scripts. And both will base their second half game plans on what happens with their original 25 plays.

San Francisco’s athletes, however, are very different from Cincinnati’s, accounting for the difference in their passing offensives.

The 49ers prefer to attack in the middle ranges with a receiver who, since early in the 1987 season, has often seemed to be the best football player in the league. This is Jerry Rice, whose bad ankle, reinjured this week, slowed him down a bit this season, but not enough to keep him from dominating opponents in San Francisco’s big games.

Rice isn’t primarily a deep receiver--just as Montana isn’t primarily a deep thrower. Thus they mesh ideally in a lineup that also includes the NFL’s best punt returner, John Taylor, at split end.

By contrast, the Bengals, with Esiason’s big arm, can use more of the field. Their leading receiver, Eddie Brown, a one-time high school quarterback, goes deeper than Rice.

A stretch-the-field sort, Brown averaged 24 yards a catch this season to Rice’s 20.4, gaining considerable ground while the ball was still in the air, whereas Rice gained more after the catch.

At Cincinnati’s other wide position, young Tim McGee, 5-10 and 175, has improved so much that he has driven 6-6 Cris Collinsworth to the bench except in special formations.

The tight ends of Super Bowl XXIII are also different kinds of big contributors.

The 49ers’ John Frank is a tough, Mike Ditka type. If he weren’t on Rice’s team, you would hear more about him.

Cincinnati tight end Rodney Holman, who made the Pro Bowl, is more mobile than Frank. Long an underrated team player with a knack for making big plays, Holman averaged 13.5 yards this season, better than some wide receivers--notably Al Toon of the Jets, who led the NFL with 93 catches but averaged only 11.5.

Offensively, a major difference between the 49ers and Bengals is that Walsh brings San Francisco’s running backs into the pass offense more often than Wyche uses his.

Craig, the 49er halfback who was named the NFL’s 1988 MVP in one poll, was perhaps the league’s most efficient receiver coming out of the backfield.

Craig and fullback Tom Rathman, who were 1-3 in 49er pass receptions in a season when Rice finished second, combined to catch 118.

For Cincinnati, halfback James Brooks and rookie fullback Ickey Woods are also above-average receivers, but in the Bengal scheme they combined to catch only 50.

THE GROUND OFFENSIVES

Brooks and Woods vs. Craig and Rathman.

The NFL’s No. 1 rushing team vs. No. 2.

It isn’t every Super Bowl that presents a backfield matchup of this caliber.

The big four are of four types.

Brooks, who came to Cincinnati from San Diego in a 1984 trade, is the NFL’s toughest 180-pound runner. Woods, a rookie throwback to Pittsburgh’s Franco Harris, is the NFL’s fastest and most gifted 235-pound fullback.

Craig, who again led the 49ers in both rushing and receiving, probably played better football than any other NFL back this season. Rathman, a match for Woods in size, is the league’s most improved fullback in all three areas, running, receiving and blocking.

The 49ers may have the edge because, regardless of who has the ball, there’s a good blocker in front of a good runner. On the Bengals, neither back blocks much.

Craig, like Marcus Allen of the Raiders, is a converted fullback who still blocks like a fullback. In the old days, when Craig blocked for Wendell Tyler at San Francisco, Hall of Famer O.J. Simpson once said: “If they ever feature Craig as a runner, he’ll be the league’s dominant (running) star.”

He became that this season.

“I feel like a deer,” he said the other day.

He also runs like one.

Craig and Allen are much alike. Both are willing to run faster in heavy traffic than other people, which makes them look faster than they are.

Craig flows through the hole like Allen, then hits like a fullback. He attacks tacklers--and often gets the best of them, spinning away.

As for Brooks, the little hitter could be the key to this Super Bowl for the Bengals. He represents their best chance to get into the game, if, for instance, he can make a couple of plays while the 49ers are concentrating on Woods and Cincinnati’s receivers.

A combination scatback-power runner, Brooks is the Bengals’ best athlete, and the grittiest. He is an outstanding clutch performer, so fast, so clever, so powerful despite his 180 pounds.

Brooks’ young teammate, Woods, is one of those rare fullbacks with the speed and moves to run in an open field. After a touchdown, he is a truly awful sideline dancer, but give him the ball and he’s always looking for a hole, looking to go outside, looking to break one.

He is a real fullback with a real halfback’s mentality and skills.

Two other things help the Bengal running game. Unlike the 49ers, Cincinnati employs a hard-hitting short-yardage running specialist, Stanley Wilson, who enjoys coming in fresh to bash tiring opponents.

Second and more significantly, the Bengals have enlisted an awesome offensive line.

At left tackle for Cincinnati, Anthony Munoz, a USC graduate, is sometimes called the best offensive lineman of the 1980s.

At right guard, Max Montoya, a UCLA graduate, anchors that side.

Earlier this month when the Bengals lost one of their three best blockers to injury, right tackle Joe Walter, they had nobody to put in there but a seasoned 1984 first-round draft choice, Brian Blados, who is 6-5 and 295.

Nobody in the Cincinnati line is under 275 pounds, they average 6 feet 6, and they have played together for years.

The 49ers, on the other hand, have been building and rebuilding offensive lines throughout the Walsh era.

Like the others, this year’s presents five new starters now that Randy Cross, the new center, is too old to play guard.

But lately, somebody has been protecting Montana, who looked around for Minnesota’s pass-rushing all-pro, Keith Millard, the other day, and couldn’t find him. Nor was Montana introduced last week to either of the Bears’ two fierce defensive tackles, Dan Hampton and Steve McMichael.

Everyone says the 49ers don’t have an offensive line. But they must have some offensive linemen.

COMPARING DEFENSES

Tim Krumrie of the Bengals, their all-pro nose tackle, was being double-blocked as usual in the middle of the scrimmage line as the Seattle offensive team put the ball in play.

In other words, he was doing what a nose tackle is paid to do: clog up the middle of a 3-4 defense, and command the attention of at least two blockers.

But as the Seahawk ballcarrier veered away from him, Krumrie somehow extricated himself, slid over, and made the tackle--and that’s what nose tackles are not required to do.

“Just tie things up,” their coaches say.

“But that’s too easy,” Krumrie says. And astonishingly, he led the Cincinnati defense this season with 98 tackles--or 25 more than than the next man, strong safety David Fulcher.

The Bengals have a defensive problem even so. The problem is that no other members of their defensive team strike terror in the hearts of opposing players.

“Block Krumrie and Fulcher and you can run on Cincinnati,” their opponents said all season.

Defensively, as it happens, the San Francisco team is similarly constructed. That is, the toughest of the 49ers is nose tackle Michael Carter. And behind Carter, there isn’t much to fear in the 49er defense until you get to the safeties, Ronnie Lott and Jeff Fuller.

To compare the Cincinnati and San Francisco defenses, in other words, is to note that they have more in common with each other than with many of their other NFL rivals. For instance, the most famous blitzers in the league all play on other teams.

Nonetheless, the results that Cincinnati and San Francisco get on defense are somewhat different.

“Just look at the statistics,” said Seattle Coach Chuck Knox.

There, the disparity is striking. Among the 28 NFL teams:

--The 49ers are third in total defense, the Bengals 15th.

--In run defense, the 49ers are also third. The Bengals are a distant 18th.

--They are only close in pass defense, where the 49ers finished eighth in 1988 and the Bengals 10th.

All told, the statistical ledger indicates that even though Cincinnati and San Francisco do the same things, San Francisco does them better--unless some of the figures lie. They may.

“The Bengals’ offense is their defense,” said Buffalo General Manager Bill Polian--meaning that Cincinnati’s offensive players usually take the game away from their opponents, and from their own defensive team as well, by driving the ball so often.

Even so, it is in the record that the 49ers pay more attention to defense than the Bengals and others do. And in this decade they always have.

Although Walsh and Wyche are the league’s most resourceful offensive coaches, the difference between them is that, in San Francisco, Walsh is first a defensive coach.

Through the 1980s, his offensive units have blown hot and cold--as they did this season, when the 49ers, after losing to the Raiders, 9-3, turned around and pounded the Minnesota Vikings, 34-9.

It’s their defense that invariably gives Walsh’s players a chance to win, at least in big games. By contrast, the Bengals have been winning with their offense.

DEFENSIVE STRATEGY

An AFC coach said this week: “The Cincinnati defense is geared to stop the run. You can throw on Cincinnati.”

Much the same is true of San Francisco, too--for similar reasons:

--On both clubs, the weakest units, offensive or defensive, are the linebackers.

--There are few threats in either defensive line.

--Most of the defensive talent in both organizations is concentrated in the secondary, which suggests that in this game, defensive backs should make the difference.

--On both clubs, the coaching staffs deploy their defensive backfields to stop runs as well as passes--in fact, to stop runs first.

Both staffs value their secondaries that highly, reasoning that the backs have the speed or ability to react to a pass if, to begin with, they are thinking run.

This is by no means the ideal way to put a Super Bowl defense together. A much preferred method is to attack with a defensive end like Reggie White or Bruce Smith, or a linebacker like Cornelius Bennett.

Lacking such players, the Bengals compensate by changing their blitz package for every game. This is an enormous coaching responsibility, but bringing in cornerbacks and safeties as blitzers--against runners as well as passers--helped free Krumrie and defensive end Jim Skow this season for a combined 12 1/2 sacks.

The 49ers compensate with designated rookie rushers Daniel Stubbs and Pierce Holt, who are too inexperienced to be used when the enemy is a threat to run, but whose 11 1/2 combined sacks--when added to linebacker Charles Haley’s 11 1/2--have toughened the San Francisco pass rush this season.

In addition, San Francisco and Cincinnati both routinely move a safety up to the line to become, in effect, a fifth linebacker.

The truth is that the 49ers’ Jeff Fuller, who is listed as a 216-pound strong safety though he appears much heavier, is considered a linebacker by opposing coaches.

“Fuller is our best athlete,” 49er defensive coach George Seifert said.

That description used to be reserved for the other 49er safety, Ronnie Lott, who has slammed into so many receivers and running backs in his 8 seasons in the league that he has slowed down to become probably the slowest free safety in football.

Yet he still is wily, an uncanny reader. And a starting Pro Bowl guy, again, this year.

Fuller and Lott are both integral to the 49er pass rush, as are the cornerbacks, Tim McKyer, a gambler with Pro Bowl ability, and steady Don Griffin.

For the Bengals, free safety Solomon Wilcots and cornerback Lewis Billups have the speed and instincts to participate in doubling Rice, who will be shadowed much of the time Sunday by Eric Thomas, their best cornerback.

Their best defensive back is Fulcher, the strong safety.

Listed at 6-3 and 228, though obviously bigger, Fulcher, like San Francisco’s man Fuller, is hard to account for in the Cincinnati defense because he’s frequently up there playing linebacker.

To beat Cincinnati, the 49ers know they must outplay two people in particular, Fulcher and Krumrie--occupying Fulcher while attacking nose tackle Krumrie with misdirection plays to deaden his desire for pursuit.

To beat San Francisco, the Bengal offense will have to outplay three guys--Carter and safeties Fuller and Lott. That could be harder.

THE SPECIAL TEAMS

A 49er punt returner named John Taylor tips the balance against the Bengals in the kicking-game matchup.

The NFL’s most dangerous runner under a punt, Taylor, the 49ers’ starting split end, averaged 12 1/2 yards a return in 1988 to lead the league.

He brought 2 back for touchdowns.

“Taylor is scary,” said Wayne Sevier, a veteran NFL special teams coach whose club, the San Diego Chargers, played both Cincinnati and San Francisco this season.

“He’s tall for a punt returner, 6 feet 1 or more, and it’s usually harder for big tall guys to run punts because they can’t get into a full sprint as fast. Taylor accelerates to full speed faster than anyone of his size I’ve ever seen.

“I’m very high on him. He was a third draft choice, I believe, from Delaware State, and this is only his second year. As a receiver, Taylor is going to be another Jerry Rice. And he also runs kickoffs.”

Taylor excepted, the special teams this time seem reasonably even. The Bengal punt runner, Ira Hillary, a second year free agent wide receiver, is no Taylor, but he keeps improving.

The Bengal kickoff runner, Stanford Jennings, lacks explosiveness, but tries hard.

San Francisco’s new kicker, Mike Cofer, is a rookie and presumably subject to big-game pressures. On the other hand, Cincinnati’s veteran kicker, Jim Breech, has lost so much distance that the Bengals have lately been calling on their punter, Lee Johnson, to attempt most of their field goals from 40 yards out or so.

The 49er have changed both of their kicking specialists this season, using a fourth-round draft choice to land rookie punter Barry Helton.

Both clubs compete with well disciplined blocking teams that don’t figure to give up any blocked kicks. The 49ers, in any case, seldom put the punt rush on.

Said Sevier: “They want the ball in Taylor’s hands--with as many blockers in front of him as they can get--versus the small percentage chance of a blocked punt.”

Is it possible that Wyche, the imaginative gimmick coach of Cincinnati, will come up with any special team gadget plays against friend Walsh?

“I think it’s very possible,” said Sevier. “You saw Wyche’s fake punt against Buffalo (Jan 8). That play maybe won that game.

“Once against (San Diego) this season, he punted in field goal formation.

“You’re wary of tricks in a game this big, of course. You hate to think of what might happen if they backfire. But being the underdog, (Wyche) might feel that he needs something special. It won’t surprise me to see a trick play.”