The Gazette from Montreal, Quebec, Canada • 20

V4 CDCCWCttC, Montreal, Sunday, January 22, 1989 SDAY SPO I aj By BOB RUBIN Miami Herald MIAMI Conventional wisdom says teams reach the Super Bowl on defence. But conventional wisdom also said Dan Quayle on the ticket would destroy George Bush's presidential hopes, the Oakland Athletics would kill the Dodgers in the World Series and Mike and Robin would live happily ever after. Conventional wisdom has been taking it in the chops lately, and the cold streak continues in the pro football venue. The Cincinnati Bengals defence is good, and the San Francisco 49ers defence is very good, but what catches the eye as the teams approach this afternoon's rendezvous in Joe Robbie Stadium are their offences, which were ranked No. 1 and 2 in the National Football League during the regular season.

The only other Super Bowl that matched the top two attacks was four years ago, when the No. 1-ranked Dolphins lost to the No. 2 49ers 38-16. Cincinnati quarterback Boomer Esiason is the league MVP, a big, strapping blond kid with an arm and mouth like a machine gun. San Francisco quarterback Joe Montana has thrown six touchdown passes in his past two games, performances that rank among the finest in his Hall of Fame decade as a pro.

Delicious thought: The Super Bowl just might enjoy a shootout. The Bengals have been versatile to the point of schizophrenia on offence, displaying starkly different personalities this season. Early in the year, they played airball well enough for Esiason to finish atop the quarterback rankings. But about mid-season they started to bump and grind, and because they have done it better than a Las Vegas chorus line, they never stopped. The Bengals haven't thrown for 200 yards in their past five games.

In contrast, they have rushed for 200 or more in seven of their past 11. In playoff victories over Seattle and Buffalo, the Bengals averaged a net 214 yards rushing and 82 passing. Esiason could hardly complain given the Grand Canyon holes the line has been opening, and the results. "I've never seen holes like this," he said. I mean, these are five-yard holes.

In all the years I've played C. (HI AP among his finest ever. if fTSitv-k "fyf 1 Craig forgotten in Bckey's hype By IAN MacDONALD of The Gazette You would be forgiven for thinking someone called "Ickey," as in Ickey Woods, is the best running back in football. You might Jhink he's the only back worthy of mention in today's Super Bowl, But you would be making a super mistake. Rather than waiting to watch the 'Ickey Shuffle' after the Cin-cinnati Bengals' celebrated rookie scores a touchdown, you might watch for a fellow named Roger Craig, who carries much of the mail for the other team the San Francisco 49ers.

Miami Dolphins coach Don Shula quite neatly wraps up Craig's value when he calls him "the complete package." Perfectionists claim the ideal running back is one who keeps his legs pumping high, swiftly and with authority until he is brought down until the play is over. Watch Craig. The only player to rush for 1,000 yards and catch passes for 1 ,000 yards in the same season (1 985), the 28-year-old University of Nebraska product rushed for 1,502 yards this season and caught 76 passes for 534 yards. Craig led the NFL in total offence and was voted to start in his third Pro Bowl (all-star) game. The man who undoubtedly will give a clinic on how to play the position he usually does has an interesting method of preparing himself mentally.

Positive thinking isn't the end-all. "If you think positive all of the time, then you're out of balance," said Craig, explaining the psychological forces that drive him to work as hard as anyone in the game. "I just think if you don't think negative some of the time, then it's not right. You start getting complacent. After a game, I usually look at the negatives, at all of the mistakes I made.

I think the negative part makes you more of a full person. It's an important added part of the entire picture." Craig takes care of himself as well any athlete. His diet is strict and his lifestyle spartan. "You have to know yourself physically and mentally," he said. "A lot of athletes don't know themselves.

I try to remain sharp in everything I do. That's the way I am, the way I feel I have to be." Along with the way he squeezes the extra yard at the end of every run, watch the professional manner he carries himself after he crosses the goalline. If you miss it first time, there will be repeats. Dying to see the game 'Super' Fan The ashes of a longtime 49ers fan will be taken to the game by his sons so he can "be there in spirit." Les Boatwright, who died with two Super Bowl tickets in his pocket Monday, had missed only two Super Bowls since the first game was played in 1967. "It was my brother who said we should take dad to the Super Bowl," said Marc Boatwright.

"Everybody thought it was the greatest idea they'd ever had. "So that's what we're going to do. He'll be there in spirit." Marc Boatwright said that after the game, he and his brother Todd will take the ashes back to California and scatter them over the Pacific. Biggest gamble This is one of the worst days of the year for compulsive gamblers, who often wrongly think they can break even on one bet, an expert says. Arnold Wexler, director of the Council on Compulsive Gambling of New Jersey, said that 30 per cent of the callers to the gambler hotline last year were involved in sports betting, mostly football.

He had a variety of tales about gamblers who called in desperation after past Super Bowls. One man had embezzled money from the bank where he worked "because he believed he had a sure bet on the Super Bowl," he said. "Suffice to say he lost." "The Super Bowl bet," Wexler said, "is the get-out bet for many addicted gamblers. It's the bet that (they think) is going to get them out of debt and help them start a new life. It is the last game of the year and the compulsive gambler wants to be able to brag to all of his or her friends about how well they can pick a winner and how smart they are." Wexler also said the hype leading up to the Super Bowl each year only aggravates the compulsive gambler into betting more than usual.

The sports media might not see the harm in casually mentioning the odds for each game but Wexler said that, too, tempts the gambler. So, you didn't read it here but give the touchdown and take the 49ers. And, if choosing the winner is too easy, there are more sophisticated calls such as who will score the game's first touchdown. San Francisco receiver and kick returner John Taylor is at 15-1 while 49ers fullback Tom Rathman is at 10-1 as is Cincinnati short-yardage specialist Stanley Wilson. It's a small world Turn on the radio Those without access to cable television can listen to the game on CJAD radio 800.

For those outside -CJAD's range, the game is being distributed by Trans World International to the following countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bermuda, Brazil, other parts of Canada, Curacao, Denmark, Do Montana's last two games were By VITO STELLINO Baltimore Sun MIAMI Hamlet with a whistle. That may be the best way to describe Bill Walsh these days. The San Francisco 49ers coach is wrestling with the question: To coach or not to coach. Walsh, 57, has been dropping hints that he is ready to walk away from the coaching profession after this af ternoon's Super Bowl against the Cincinnati Bengals. If the 49ers win, it could be a per fect time to exit.

With three Super Bowls in eight seasons, he could re tire as the coach of the decade who piloted the team of the decade. There would be no more worlds to conquer. If the 49ers are upset, it might be tougher for him to walk away, but he seems to have convinced San Francisco owner Eddie DeBartolo Jr. that he's ready to quit. Odds 80-20 On Monday, DeBartolo told two reporters who cover the 49ers that he thinks the odds are 80-20 that Walsh will quit.

"I assume this (Super Bowl) is his last game," DeBartolo said. "He told me that." He said he expects an announcement tomorrow or Tuesday. At the team's photo sessions Tuesday at Joe Robbie Stadium, DeBartolo and Walsh talked around the subject. "I hope he comes back and coaches," DeBartolo said. Walsh said, "What I can say is that we're going to meet next week as an organization and decide which direction we will go in.

We want to go in a direction that is best for the 49ers. We hope to retain our organization as you see it." Walsh said he wasn't burned out. "That's an overstated buzzword. I don't feel that kind of stress. My nerve endings aren't shot," he said.

When he explained why he may leave, he said, "You do it to go on in life with things that are just as important to you. I'm not going to sail around the world in a boat, but you it ITJ-dlVllULM a petitive, the stress increases. "This is not General Motors, Ford and Chrysler. There are 28 competing teams, all mobilized and reasonably well-coached, so you should go to the Super Bowl about once every 14 years. Owners and others just have to recognize that they can't just, by their own will, win," he said.

The searing experience of last season apparently also had quite an effect on Walsh. The team went 13-2 in the regular season, was favored to win in the Super Bowl and was upset by Minnesota in the first round of the playoffs. DeBartolo was angry and stripped Walsh of his title as team president. When the team started 6-5 this season, DeBartolo was dropping hints he wasn't going to let Walsh stay on as coach. It didn't help that Walsh's personal life was in shambles, culminating in a separation from his wife.

Until the team rallied to win six of its last seven (including two in the playoffs), it was a tough year for Walsh. Self-esteem on line "My self-esteem was on the line going into this year," Walsh said. "There's been tremendous stress inside me related to that playoff loss to Minnesota. It comes from above and below and the sides, from the owners and the fans and the media, because the focus now is almost exclusively on the coach. At some point, the owners have to come to the conclusion it's not all just this one gay." Walsh, though, was never bashful in accepting the plaudits when the team won.

He didn't blush when he was called a genius. Coaching football does that to people. It's easy for a coach to take himself seriously, perhaps too seriously. It's as difficult sometimes to cope with the good times as the bad times. All this helps explain Walsh's inclination to walk away, especially if he wins today.

The odds are against him repeating next year. of Einstein until the wee hours. "Three, I told him don't get up in the middle of the night and run tapes. Then I told him to start every day with a team meeting; talk about objectives for that day, the next opponent or whatever. Just five, six minutes maybe.

But run out on that field together." Boomer required a verbal lobo-tomy from Brown. During the strike that shattered the 1987 season, Esiason was one of the players' union hardliners. He was the Bengals' player representative and an outspoken activist. "Boomer was a young man who got carried away last year into something I don't think he'd do again," Brown said. Hard feelings festered in Cincinnati in the shambles of the strike harder than in many other places, Brown said.

So, at the end of that lousy season, Brown sat Boomer down at breakfast one morning. "Boomer and I just talked about things like the best way to regain our town was to win," Brown said. "In Boomer's case, I was just trying to help him as a young man." Obviously it didn't hurt him as a quarterback, either. Brown football's version Scripps Howard News Service MIAMI The Super Bowl never knew a week like this, when Over-town rioted and real life intruded upon the revelry. But no matter the nature of the week that was, it always leads to a football game and so has this one, to tomorrow's meeting of the favored San Francisco 49ers and the cocky Cincinnati Bengals.

QUARTERBACKS San Francisco Joe Montana is as hot as he's ever been, and that's going some for a two-time Super Bowl MVP. He is deadly accurate, the best at reading defences and, according to John Madden, threw the ball "as hard as John Elway" in the NFC title game. His only drawback is the ever-present possibility that one blow to the back could put him out of the game. And even then, the 49ers have the very capable Steve Young. Cincinnati Boomer Esiason has remarkable confidence and leadership ability, and he might have to make it go a long way in this game.

The Bengals' passing game clearly has molded a bit on the shelf the past few weeks, and Esiason did not pass with much accuracy during this week's practice. But Esiason is such that if he reads this, he might have the best Super Bowl ever. Edge: San Francisco. RUNNING BACKS San Francisco This is the perfect combination of a star and a supporting actor. Roger Craig used tremendous blocking help from fullback Tom Rathman in gaining rushing yards, and Rathman averaged 4.2 yards per carry as a change-of-pace man up the middle.

Craig is in great shape, and should be at his high-stepping best. Cincinnati You couldn't ask for a more talented starting pair than Ickey Woods and James Brooks. But Brooks's late-season performance has been puzzling. His numbers have dropped off sharply even though he seems perfectly healthy. Once the main man in the rushing attack, he now goes outside as the changeup to Woods up the middle.

Edge: Even. WIDE RECEIVERS San Francisco Jerry Rice's sore ankle could be a crucial factor. But if he's 85 per cent or better, which is almost certain, he's as much a physical load as anyone in footbalL The 6-foot-2, 206-pounder is hard to bump, has great hands, and goes for the ball. His supporting cast is not 3 T' IMS- 1 1 SiuSU Bill Walsh faces decision. want to do that at a time in your life when there are still some things you can do and look forward to." Walsh has done a remarkable job of keeping the 49ers on top in this decade.

He virtually has remade the team he has just seven players left from the 1981 club while keeping the 49ers a contender. The pressure, though, takes its toll. "The game today can wear you out. In your later years, you'd like to become more artistic and thoughtful, but you can't. You have to win it again," he said.

As the league becomes more com Bengals. But his mastery of football is still there transfused, for example, into the skulls of Wyche and Esiason. This time a year ago, Wyche and Esiason needed Brown-calibre counseling. With demons pursuing them, they stumbled out of a strike-spattered 4-11 season and crashed onto Brown's psychiatric couch. Brown's first project was Wyche.

At the end of the bummer season, Brown began to reassemble his shaken coach. Recognizing workaholism when he saw it, Brown laid down some new rules for Wyche. "No. 1, I told him to eat three meals a day. Two, I told him to leave the field and get home around 7 and don't keep the staff down there mm Coverage begins at 11:30 a.m.

with NFL Gameday on TSN. At 3 p.m. on NBC, it's the NFL followed at 5 p.m. by the game on NBC. The NFL Primetime Super Bowl Special on TSN at 11 p.m.

will recap the day's festivities. minican Republic, Dubai, England, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, i By AL DUNNING Memphis Commercial Appeal MIAMI Need a brain transplant? Get one from a genius. It worked for Sam Wyche and Boomer Esiason. Wyche coaches the Cincinnati Bengals. Esiason is the quarterback.

They are in Super Bowl XXIII mainly because both of them have learned to think like Paul Brown. Whippersnapper fans in the NFL may not hold Paul Brown in proper reverence, but connoiseurs of the game do. Brown is to football what Einstein was to multiplication tables. Brown is the smartest man in the game and likely the smartest man who has ever been in the game. He is 80 now and closing in on 60 years of outfoxing people on football fields.

He created a high school monster at Massillon, Ohio, coached college national champs at Ohio State and helped invent high-tech pro football as founder of the Cleveland Browns (1946) and then the Cincinnati Bengals (1967). To the everlasting relief of NFL coaches everywhere. Brown doesn't coach any longer. He is vice-president and general manager of the Jamaica, Japan, Lebanon, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Panama, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, Scotland, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, Venezuela, Wales and Yugoslavia Seahawks linebacker Brian Bosworth likes the 49ers because of quarterback Joe Montana's "touch control he can just drop the ball over the defender" and because 232-pound blocking back Tom Rath-man is "one of the best running backs in the league." Former Alouettes Quarterbacks were the MVP in five of the first six Super Bowls and three of the last four. From Super Bowl VII to Super Bowl XII, players at other positions won, with two onetime Alouettes Jake Scott (Miami Dolphins) and Fred Bi-letnikoff (Oakland Raiders) being honored.

Biletnikoff was here in 1981 after coming unglued as an ace NFL receiver. Scott worked out here in the early 70s after a season with the B.C. Lions and while he was trying to break a CFL option clause before going on to an all-star safety career with the Dolphins Ben-gaJs' free spirit wide receiver Cris Collinsworth doesn't believe any of the players go into this game relaxed. "We could be up here doing a song-and-dance every night of the week," Collins-worth said, "but by the time Saturday night hits and you're lying in bed and it's just you and the ceiling staring back at each other, you know it's a different sort of a game.".