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Though he is just 25, Montana's command is equaled by his concentration. He could not see Clark's catch, but he heard it. "When you're concentrating, the crowd noise is in the back of your head," he explains. "After the catch is made, it's like someone turned the speakers on." Until then, it can be as quiet as Wimbledon, particularly in the huddle. He doesn't have to tell the other players to be still, because his inner silence does. He observes laconically: "Once I get down on the knee, nothing is usually going on." When he gets up, and starts jump-passing, scissor-kicking, twisting one way, tossing the other, everything is going on.
Walsh says, "He gets better and better. He's different now than he was four weeks ago, that much more innovative. As time goes on, the more say he will have; by the middle of next year, he'll be running the show." This year's show wasn't bad: 64% completions, 3,565 yds., 19 touchdown passes, the best marks in the National Conference. His salary now is something more than $100,000, but real riches await. Says Walsh: "It's almost limitless what Joe can become."
Super Bowl champion comes to mind, but the Cincinnati Bengals will have much to say about it. If this is Montana's moment, it is Walsh's Super Bowl. Cincinnati is one of the teams that he assisted in the past, the one that should be most chagrined at not promoting him to head coach. While he was there he molded Ken Anderson (see box), and both quarterbacks in this game are likely to be sending up a song of Walsh all week in Pontiac. "Genius" is a word being tossed around in praise of the 49er coach, but he prefers"expert" and does not object to "artist."
In the three 49er seasons of Walsh and Montana, the team has been 2-14 when Joe played very little, 6-10 when he played more, and now that he plays all the time, 15-3 and dreaming. With all of the attention to Walsh's ingenuity and Montana's resourcefulness, it is easy to forget that San Francisco might fairly be called a defensive team. Lineman Fred Dean, the leading looter and sacker, has been most influential. He defected from San Diego this year either because the Chargers misjudged the importance, or couldn't quite afford the price, that the best pass rusher in the National Football League placed on himself. The Los Angeles Rams were also obliging enough to see no use for Linebacker Jack Reynolds, the gruff new foreman of the 49er defense.
Three other players—Secondary Men Ronnie Lott, Eric Wright and Carlton Williamson—rate applause too, if only for batting down one of pro football's most worn samplers: "Isolate on the rookie." They are all rookies.