PRO FOOTBALL : Leadership of Montana Remains at Arm’s Length for the 49ers

Once more, the most important NFL story this summer is also the most mysterious. Will Joe Montana be able to play?

It can be another Super Bowl for the San Francisco 49ers if they have Montana at quarterback most of the time. But they aren’t the same team without him.

“Much of the soreness is gone,” he said Monday of his right elbow. “If (it) continues to improve, I’ll be in there (on opening day).”

That, however, is a more optimistic prognosis than some who know him are making. Since playing his last game, Montana, 36, has had four operations. And the most serious of these--the surgical reattachment of a tendon to his elbow--was a medical first.

Montana, who sat out all of last season, hasn’t practiced since early in training camp last month.

“I tried to come back too fast,” he said.

Top five: Joel Buchsbaum of Pro Football Weekly, who has been watching and judging NFL coaches for 25 years, rates the following as the five best since Vince Lombardi:

Sid Gillman, retired.

Bill Walsh, now at Stanford.

Ernie Zampese, Ram assistant.

Don Coryell, retired.

Joe Gibbs, Washington Redskins.

There have been twice as many top defensive coaches, Buchsbaum said, naming Bill Arnsparger, Joe Collier, Tom Landry, Tom Catlin, Bud Carson, Richie Petitbon, George Seifert and Bill Belichick, with, he adds, “Buddy Ryan and Rod Rust (next).”

Day game: It will be Eric Dickerson and Todd Marinovich, among others, against the Washington Redskins in the Raiders’ exhibition home opener Saturday.

And one question is whether the Raiders will run Dickerson with the first team this time. Playing with the second team against the Rams the other night, he gained a yard in five carries.

Is he capable of more? In the last 10 years, Dickerson is the only NFL running back who has won the league’s rushing championship in as many as three different seasons.

In the last 20 years, O.J. Simpson is the only back who has won it four times.

Dickerson and Simpson are the best, some say, since Gale Sayers, and at 31, Dickerson still has a chance to catch Simpson. It probably depends on whether Marinovich matures sufficiently on and off the field.

Dickerson has yet to run with a good NFL team. When he was in Anaheim, the Rams had everything but a quarterback. In Indianapolis, the Colts had everything but a team.

Night game: In the season’s first regional day-night doubleheader, the Rams’ exhibition against the Green Bay Packers at Anaheim Saturday will follow the Raider-Redskin exhibition at the Coliseum.

Kickoff times are 1 p.m. at the Coliseum and 6 p.m. at Anaheim Stadium.

In his second Ram tour, two things are different for Coach Chuck Knox:

--The club has moved from Los Angeles County to Orange County.

--And, lawyer Pat Haden said, “Chuck has a quarterback this season for the first time in his (19-year) NFL career.”

In Los Angeles last time, Knox had a winner in Haden, who is now the Turner Network TV analyst. But it’s true that Jim Everett is the veteran coach’s first exceptional passer.

But during the Raider game, no quarterback seemed more comfortable or poised than Ram rookie T.J. Rubley.

And no NFL back looked better during the weekend than Ram reclamation project Marcus Dupree, John Robinson’s gift to his successor. Dupree carried 22 times Saturday night. Twenty-two. That’s Knox.

Trick play: The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have lost most of their games since firing John McKay eight years ago. This summer, accordingly, Sam Wyche, their unpredictable new coach who has moved over from Cincinnati, asked Florida sports fans for some assistance.

One fan sent in a man-in-motion play, and Wyche called it in his first game.

It went this way: On first down, quarterback Vinny Testaverde led the Buccaneers out of the huddle as usual. But as he approached the line of scrimmage, Testaverde feigned confusion and started for the sideline without calling time.

As he did so, the Buccaneers snapped the ball to running back Gary Anderson, who gained 13 yards.

However, a Tampa Bay lineman was offside. At Tampa Bay, they can’t win for losing.

Maddox day: Whenever he could escape the Miami Dolphins’ rush, quarterback Tommy Maddox threw the ball with authority and accuracy for the Denver Broncos against the Miami Dolphins on Saturday.

Unperturbed by six sacks, Maddox, in his NFL debut, was a projection of everything he had seemed to be in his UCLA debut.

Obviously content in Denver, he showed a Rocky Mountain News reporter an essay that he and a girlfriend had produced as high school classmates in Texas before his UCLA years.

They wrote:

“Dwelling: We will live in Denver, Colorado.

“Transportation: Tommy, at the time of our wedding, will have an ’89 Porsche.

“Income: Here’s hoping! . . . $500,000.

“Occupation: Tommy plans to play professional football for the Denver Broncos. If that plan falls through, he will go into the insurance business.”

The insurance job is on hold.

System trouble: The 49ers, to take full advantage of No. 2 quarterback Steve Young, would have to change their offense. As the best running quarterback in football, Young is the wrong sort for the offense, originally installed by Walsh, which Montana operates so well.

But because Coach George Seifert and his assistants aren’t sure whether Montana will return this year, they’re reluctant to put the 49ers in a system based on Young’s strengths.

That leaves them with Steve Bono.

As he did when summoned last year, Bono demonstrated during Sunday’s Redskin-49er exhibition that he can play Montana football expertly. On long passes, in fact, he is better than Montana.

With Bono and their new running back--Ricky Watters, a 1991 No. 2 draft choice from Notre Dame--the 49ers have the look of a team with a chance.

Tee trouble: The NFL experiment with a one-inch kicking tee this month, replacing the standard three-inch tee on kickoffs, has been a disappointment.

The league had hoped that a smaller tee would lead to shorter kickoffs and longer runbacks. But NFL figures show a change of only 2% in the number of kicks returned last season and this.

Most coaches are continuing to resist the obvious solution, kicking off from the ground. Few such kicks would land in the end zone, meaning there would be runbacks most of the time.

And a long runback is one of football’s best plays.

Quote Dept.:

Jeff George, Indianapolis quarterback, on returning to school at Illinois: “If a guy has the talent and desire, he can play in the NFL and still get his degree.”

Neal Anderson, Chicago Bear running back, on playing football overseas: “Everything starts later (in Berlin). The first night I went out at 11, and none of the discos were open yet.”

Dan Reeves, Denver coach, on quarterback John Elway: “He’s having a great camp. There’s a gleam in his eye. He’s showing a great grasp of where to go with the ball.”

Ray Bentley, Buffalo linebacker: “If you did some of the things in real life that a pro football player does on the field, you’d wind up in jail. But if (you have) the attitude it takes to write children’s books, you’ll end up in the hospital.”