SUPER BOWL XXIV: DENVER BRONCOS vs. SAN FRANCISCO 49ERS : This Game Plays Into Their Hands : Elway: Bronco quarterback is hoping for a breath of fresh air this time after difficult days off the field.

NEW ORLEANS —  OK class, let’s turn to our John Elway chart.

Note the teeth. Too prominent, they say. “Mr. Ed,” Brian Bosworth called him.

Note the large right biceps. Too powerful for those all-important touch passes.

Note the enlargement on his hip. Possibly from a wallet stuffed with money from his $10,000-an-appearance TV show and his endorsements. Not lightened by tips, which he reportedly doesn’t leave.

Note the head. Does it seem a little fat? Like someone who would let his baby-sitter answer the door on Halloween, rather than hand out candy personally?

Thus did the Broncomaniacs assay the Life Style of Their Rich & Famous Quarterback in the two years since his last Super Bowl appearance.

Can anyone remember as far back as Super Bowl XXII in San Diego when Elway was regarded as the king of quarterbacks, superior to Joe Montana, Dan Marino and the rest, in the words of then-Patriot personnel director Dick Steinberg, “the best thing going?”

They turn ‘em over quick in the king-of-quarterbacks competition. Elway had a rotten ’88 season, as the Broncos collapsed under him, and a pretty undistinguished ’89 campaign, when the Broncos arose, largely without him.

By mid-season, 1989, he was up to his prominent teeth in scrutiny, prompting his “I’m about to suffocate” plea in Sports Illustrated. Things improved a little after that, a lot in the playoffs and here we are again.

There’s more than just the rise and fall of another famous athlete to be seen here. This is the care, feeding, fattening up and slaughtering of a hero, a phenomenon of our time. For so dramatic an example, we are indebted to Broncomania, but this process goes on everywhere.

If a little more slowly.

Let the bad times roll . . .

Can anyone remember how Super Bowl XXII started, the very first play, Elway hitting Ricky Nattiel with a 56-yard touchdown pass?

It didn’t get any better than that. Elway missed on 23 of his next 37 passes and threw three interceptions. The Broncos got flattened by the Redskins and kept on getting flattened the next season: 30-27 by the Raiders after blowing a 24-0 lead; 39-21 by the Steelers; 55-23 by the Colts; 42-0 by the Saints; 42-14 by the Seahawks.

Elway was said to miss his old quarterback coach, Mike Shanahan, who’d gone to the Raiders. He certainly missed a running game and a defense. There was more malaise than you could measure.

They said it was an undisclosed sore arm. Then Elway opened slowly this season, too--try eight interceptions by Week 6.

Meanwhile, there was the usual titillating coverage.

A Denver sports columnist said Elway was a bad tipper; a gossip columnist said the quarterback had been spotted at a local bar drinking light beer and playing backgammon.

For the piece de resistance , the Rocky Mountain News’ feature section sent trick-or-treating children out with reporters Halloween night, to report on the reception afforded them by various community leaders.

Reported the News:

“John and Janet Elway--A woman dressed in pink pajamas and wearing a bright pink wig--looking a little like a bunny--answered the door at the Bronco quarterback’s Arapaho County house. Looked like Janet, but not sure. Two little kids inside, John Elway nowhere to be seen. Bunny motif continues with ceramic bunnies on front porch steps. We get a Reese’s Cup and a miniature Kit-Kat bar.”

Implicitly charged with stiffing the neighborhood kids and giving out cheap candy, Elway was further embarrassed . . . because he endorses Nestle’s Crunch.

In Week 7, Shanahan, who had been fired by the Raiders, was rehired by the Broncos. Denver writers wanted Elway’s reaction, but Elway had the development squad quarterback pull his truck up to the locker room, then made a getaway out the back door. Then he went on his own TV show and broke his silence.

Stung by the criticism he took for that, the usually personable Elway stared at writers passing by the next day at the Bronco facility.

“There’s a perfect person,” he said to assistant coach Wade Phillips, as a reporter walked by.

“There’s another perfect person.”

This was only the warmup.

A small Denver alternative paper, Westword, began working on a story detailing Elway’s drinking habits. The same paper had recently broken the story that Colorado Coach Bill McCartney’s daughter had had a baby by quarterback Sal Aunese, which had been generally known, but unreported by the big papers.

The buzz was deafening. The resident NFL security man in Denver met with Elway to ask him about the rumors.

ESPN’s Jim Gray came right out and asked Elway about the rumors. Elway angrily denied them.

When Sports Illustrated’s Denver-based Rick Reilly began working on an Elway story, Bronco owner Pat Bowlen, apparently fearing the magazine would come up with a drinking story, called Reilly the “local director of smut for the national sports Enquirer.”

Enquiring minds never found out.

Westword never wrote a story.

The SI piece turned out to be Elway’s plea for media surcease.

The Broncos held a press conference to discuss the situation. Elway, his distress at his long-running slump perhaps compounding his discomfort, complained also of the coverage given the team--”Everything’s been negative.”

Dan Reeves, coach of a then 6-2 team, called it “the worst year I’ve ever had.”

Aside from that, it was just your basic stroll to a division title.

Was that only 10 weeks ago?

Elway finished better, then busted loose in the playoffs: 239 yards passing and one touchdown plus 44 yards rushing, no sacks, no interceptions against the Steelers; 385 passing and three touchdowns, 39 rushing, one sack, no interceptions against the Browns.

“It’s been a frustrating year, but this is what makes it all worthwhile,” he said after the AFC championship.

“I think that every quarterback goes through some rough times and when you’re playing the position, everything isn’t going to be rosy all the time. So it’s a matter of being strong and hanging in there. That’s what I tried to do all year.

“It does feel good. Not in the fact that I’m glad to prove people wrong or anything like that. I’m just glad I can come in and play well in a big game like this, for the guys on the team and the organization.

“I want to try to keep the attitude I took going into both those other Super Bowls. That’s, heck, as a kid football player, this is the game you dream of playing in.

“I don’t want to make it a miserable experience and go and get worried about, ‘Yeah, we have to win this game,’ or think about the negatives of it. I want to go into the game and do the best I can and have some fun and kinda seize the moment.”

Tuesday, he greeted the picture-day media horde, looking as relaxed as he ever has in Super Bowls. He leaned back in his chair. He put his feet up. He made bemused jokes about being written off--”We don’t have a chance”--and looked in general as if he was surfing on the hype.

Thus does one hero survive. He has been admired, romanticized, loaded up with unrealistic expectations, discarded for a newer hero--meet Joe Montana, now the putative “greatest quarterback ever”--inspected, dejected, rejected.

Elway isn’t an innocent in this; he is well paid ($2.1 million annually) and is active commercially, besides, limiting his claim to privacy.

But who ever realizes what he’s getting into? One moment, he’s a kid playing catch, dreaming of playing in the Super Bowl, never imagining a down side. Children’s footballs ought to come equipped with a warning sticker:

“Be careful, kid, get too good at this and they may send child operatives to your door on Halloween.”

Nah, who’d believe it?

* SHANAHAN: All things considered, he would rather be coaching the Raiders. C6.

* DURSLAG: Bubba Paris doesn’t work for scale, which is fine with 49ers. C7.

* NOTEBOOK: Mega-hype of media day doesn’t bother Broncos’ Mark Jackson. C8.