49ers Stay on Familiar Path to Easy Success

SAN FRANCISCO — Their season has been one long bye leading to the Super Bowl, facing a schedule comparable to a top-seeded team playing No. 16 in the NCAA basketball tournament--round after round until the finals.

New Orleans, St. Louis, San Diego . . . San Francisco’s list of victims reads like a who’s who of NFL doormats. Thrust into the playoffs on the strength of playing no one, the 49ers found themselves Saturday matched against the Minnesota Vikings--and in the 38-22 victory, their most pressing concern was not giggling out loud.

The NFC divisional playoff clash lacked any drama beyond halftime with San Francisco swamping Minnesota before 65,018 in 3Com Park, setting up next week’s NFC championship game here against the winner of today’s Tampa Bay-Green Bay conflict in Lambeau Field.

Of course, if the stars remain aligned correctly, the Buccaneers will win, bringing an erratic Trent Dilfer & Co. to 3Com next week to cap off the 49ers’ free ride to fame in Super Bowl XXXII.

“I think it’s disrespectful to even suggest such a thing,” said San Francisco cornerback Rod Woodson, none too happy at being asked about the 49ers’ 1997 cakewalk. “I do not choose to comment. Everybody has their opinion, I guess. It’s our constitutional right, but that’s ridiculous.”

Couldn’t have said it any better: As ridiculous as it is, the 49ers reached the NFC title game for the first time in three years by defeating only two teams with winning records this season: Minnesota and Denver.

They whomped the Vikings at home with Randall Cunningham making his first start at quarterback since 1995, and after the Broncos jumped out to a 10-0 lead and lost running back Terrell Davis, the 49ers came roaring back at home to win, 34-17.

They played only two other teams with more wins than losses--Tampa Bay and Kansas City--and lost by a combined score of 57-15.

“Before we played Minnesota the first time this year, Denny Green said our schedule has been nothing but hiccups and giggles,” San Francisco linebacker Gary Plummer said. “So what I want to know is what was Minnesota--the hiccup or the giggle?

“All year long everyone has been asking how good are the 49ers. Well, we’re good enough to be in the NFC championship.”

Correction: Lucky enough to reside in the NFC West, in which eight wins can be had by simply showing up.

“Was that fun or what?” said San Francisco Coach Steve Mariucci, now 1-0 in the NFL playoffs, a nice balance to his 0-1 record in college bowl games. “We met last night as usual and I was nervous, but after our meetings, we all seemed to be loose.”

Sure, it dawned on them who they were playing. The Vikings, building their winning record earlier in the season on the strength of Brad Johnson’s play at quarterback before he suffered a neck injury, were now relying on Cunningham, who was cutting marble tile in Las Vegas a year ago at this time.

The Vikings, two-touchdown underdogs, came in ranked No. 29 on defense, which made them better than only the Raiders.

And yet after the first quarter it was 7-7 because the 49ers’ secondary, which has played against quarterbacks like Heath Shuler, Craig Whelihan and Kerry Collins all season long, was exposed as a potential weakness with Cunningham throwing a 66-yard touchdown pass to a wide-open Cris Carter.

The game ended shortly after that, with Terry Kirby looking like Barry Sanders matched against the Vikings’ 23rd-ranked rushing defense and running 25 times for 120 yards and scoring a pair of one-yard touchdowns. Linebacker Ken Norton’s 23-yard interception return for a touchdown and Terrell Owens’ 15-yard touchdown catch from Steve Young added to Minnesota’s misery, but that did not seem to impress Carter.

“I’ll tell you where San Francisco is going to have a problem,” said Carter, who had the experience of playing two games each this season against Tampa Bay, Green Bay and San Francisco. “When they face a team like Kansas City or Green Bay, teams that jam the receivers--because they don’t have Jerry Rice and a lot of big-play ability--they won’t be able to run these little eight-yard outs.

“Green Bay is going to have to beat a very physical Tampa Bay team, and San Francisco has the mystique and is playing at home, but Green Bay is a great team playing on the grass, in the rain and in the mud. And they have balance, balance that will pose some problems for the 49ers. You always have to go with the team with the home-field advantage, but the Packers are the defending Super Bowl champions, and so it’s set up to be a great clash next week.”

Having run out of tomato cans, the 49ers, however, must still prove they can beat the likes of the Packers and emerge as champions.

The past two years the Packers have ended the 49ers’ season with playoff victories, and already Green Bay has asserted itself as the team to beat with a five-game winning streak as it prepares to meet Tampa Bay.

“Come on, Green Bay lost to Indianapolis,” said Plummer, while intimating it might be best for San Francisco in the long run to be challenged by the Packers in next week’s NFC championship game. “Now if it’s Tampa Bay who plays us, then we’re going to have critics saying we got to the Super Bowl without beating anyone. And that’s fine with us, as long as we’re there.”

But first, they would have to beat Tampa Bay, and given one try already this season, they failed.

That was the opening game of the season, when Rice was knocked out because of a knee injury and Young was knocked out because of a concussion in the Buccaneers’ 13-6 victory. The 49ers won 11 in a row after that, but they can’t afford to be knocked out again.