Same old… same fold

Sporting News, The, Jan 30, 1995 by Michael Knisley, Tim Cowlishaw

Welcome to the turnip truck.

It's were we believe any of the stupefying statements coming from the people whose livelihoods hood apparently depends on selling the snake oil of a competitive Super Bowl this Sunday. Only a huckleberry could believe the Chargers will be anything other than a can of Skoal for San Francisco, but that doesn't stop the flim-flam.

Really, it's a little insulting. Football players and coaches, especially the ones involved in the game, have always been afflicted with the genetically induced psychological disorder that causes a regurgitation of niceties about the upcoming opponent despite the team's obvious feebleties. an medical circles, the name for this illness is "onanygivensunday.") But what's happening as we approach Super Bowl XXXIX is making the rest of us sick, too.

Apparently, they have to say it and we have to listen. Them's the rules. But it's revolting, nonetheless, to hear 49ers Coach George Seifert talk about the super-human effort it will take for his piddlin little players to measure up to San Diego.

"They all have to step it up,' Seifert says. They all should crank it up that much more. As hard as many of them played this last game, they're going to have to play that much harder and more intense in this next game."

That last game was against the two-time defending Super Bowl champion Cowboys, losers by 10 points to San Francisco two Sundays ago. This next game is against the 28-time defending Super Bowl non-qualifier San Diego Chargers, losers by 23 points to San Francisco seven Sundays ago.

But Seiferfs face, somehow, stays straight

Seifert coaches his players very well, not only on the field but in front of a notepad. Apparently, he imparted that wisdom to defensive tackle Dana Stubblefield, who buys into Seiferts chicanery, at least for public consumption.

"I knew from the beginning, when San Diego came out and was just running through teams in the NFL and went 6-0 to start off, that they were a tough team to beat when they were healthy," Stabblefield says. "Now that they've got everybody healthy again, I'm sure ifs going to be an evenly matched ballgame.'

Kind of makes you want to stick your finger down your throat and get it over with.

The folks who have to televise this pig may be the worst offenders, because their ratings depend in great measure on how high they pump up the volume on the ol'hype-ola machine. Why, over at ABC, they're trying to foist the notion on us that they'd rather beam this Chargers-49ers punch Ene around the world than a matchup of San Francisco and Pittsburgh, which would have been a showdown of two four-time Super Bowl winners pitting the league's second-best offense against its second-best defense.

Hope ABC bought you a swell birthday present the network apparently thinks you were born yesterday.

At least one member of the 49ers' family, team President Carmen Policy, gave voice just after the NFC championship game to the scandalous opinion that a game against the Chargers might be an anticlimax after aU the buildup for the Cowboys. But the rest of the organization spent the next week and half in emergency damagecontrol mode. Even Owner Edward Debartolo Jr. gave it his best lip service as he addressed the rising fine on the game, which at last glance made San Francisco a favorite by 8,352,977 points.

"I was sitting in my office (in Youngstown, O.) reading the scouting report on the Chargers," DeBartolo says. "And I said, How in God's name could Las Vegas put this fine on the game? 'It's a slap in the face to (the Chargers)."

Fortunately, there are enough sound minds and bodies not directly affiliated with the Chargers, the 49ers or ABC to tell it to us straight Last week in Mobile, Ala., where everyone who is anyone in the NFL gathered to scout the Senior Bowl, Paul Attner conducted a quasi-exhaustive search for experts who think San Diego win win.

Here are the three most representative responses:

1. "Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.'

2. "In a pig's eye.'

3. "Sure. They can win. And I'm dating Uma Thurman."

We may have done irreparable damage to our credibility, just in asking the question.

So in the interest of public health and safety, I think ifs time for the government to step forward and put a stop to the pabulum about parity in this game. Shouldn't President Clinton send a Task Force on Mendacity down to Miami this week? Maybe the Federal Trade Commission could do something. Where are the truth-in-advertising laws when you really need them?

The AFC continues its long, gray line of losses, the longest losing streak since Wile E. Coyote started playing one-on-one with the Roadrunner. San Francisco wins, no sweat Even we hayseeds know it But that still leaves us room to ponder a few of the game's other pertinences, as long as we aU understand they don't change the final result. Herewith, then, the questions and answers you may find useful for Super Bowl XXIX

QUESTION: Who the beck is Bobby Ross?

Answer: Ross is one of sport's nicest and most anonymous coaches for one of sport's nicest and most anonymous franchises. This is the man, remember, who had to pay his way into San Diego jack Murphy Stadium a couple of times this season because the parking attendants didn't recognize him. But to know Ross is to like Ross. And to play for Ross is to maximize your abilities. Say what you will about the Chargers' chances of winning Sunday (and I think we've adequately covered that), but understand that San Diego won't concede anything until it absolutely, positively has to.