Analysis : Bears Figure to Breeze, Until the Moment of Truth

Here are a couple of things to look for in January:

--The Chicago Bears should breeze to the Super Bowl, beating any two National Conference teams they have to beat.

--The American Conference representative, whoever that is, should win the Super Bowl.

Since early October, the Bears have seemed the best team in pro football, and they appeared to rate a slight advantage at the end of the regular season Sunday, when they and nine other survivors advanced to the playoffs.

The four-round, single-elimination tournament will begin with two wild-card games this weekend and end with Super Bowl XX at New Orleans on Jan. 26.

Aside from the Bears (15-1), the most impressive teams in this year’s playoff field are all from one division, the AFC East, where three young quarterbacks--each drafted in 1983--are making a difference.

They are Dan Marino of the Miami Dolphins (12-4), Ken O’Brien of the New York Jets (11-5) and Tony Eason of the New England Patriots (11-5).

The Raiders (12-4) are tougher defensively than any of these three, and led by Marcus Allen, they’ve become the league’s hardest-running team.

Their problem is that to reach the Super Bowl, the Raiders will have to outscore two of the three big-play Eastern teams--the Jets or Patriots Jan. 5 and then the Dolphins Jan. 12. And the question is whether the Raider pass offense is up to that.

In the NFC, the San Francisco 49ers (10-6) have the best chance to beat Chicago, and at a neutral, warm-weather site, they could do it.

As of the end of the season, the Bears and 49ers were the class of the NFC.

This week, however, the 49ers will be matched against a rising NFC power, the New York Giants, in the freezing Meadowlands. And a week later, the weather probably will be worse in Chicago.

It is roughneck Bear weather coupled with roughneck Bear football that makes this team the likely NFC champion.

But the Bears are inexperienced in Super Bowl pressure. The AFC favorites, the Dolphins and Raiders, have both learned firsthand what that kind of pressure is like. Indoors in the tense, noisy, Superdome on Jan. 26, the AFC champion will be hard to beat.

According to their ability, the 10 playoff teams were divided into four groups when evaluated in Las Vegas this week by Bob Martin, the Union Plaza odds consultant.

--The Bears stand alone, he said.

--On the next level, Martin placed the Dolphins, Raiders and 49ers.

--Next: the Jets, Patriots and Giants.

--Finally, three division champions were on the bottom: the Cowboys, Rams and Browns.

This is the first time in playoff history that all four wild-card teams have graded ahead of three division winners.

Martin’s playoff handicap doesn’t, of course, strictly reflect his 10-team evaluation. He had to downgrade most of the wild-card teams for this reason:

“Wild cards have to win four straight games to win the Super Bowl,� he said. “Division champs can do it in three.�

Thus, he said, only four clubs have a realistic shot at the Super Bowl title. In order, Martin listed the odds-on Bears at 5-6; the Dolphins, 4-1; Raiders, 5-1, and 49ers, 7-1.

The longshots are Dallas and the Rams, both 12-1; the Jets and Giants, both 35-1; the Browns, 40-1, and Patriots, 50-1.

“The 49ers are an exception to the general run of wild cards,� Martin said. “For as long as they’re in the playoffs, they’ll be favored against everybody they play except the Bears.�

By comparison, in the more competitive AFC, the Patriots figure as the underdogs in four straight, Martin said.

In the Las Vegas handicap, the Dolphins and not the Raiders are the second choice, behind the Bears, because of Miami’s schedule advantage.

“The Dolphins,� Martin said, “face an easier first game (against Cleveland) than the Raiders will have against the Jets or Patriots.�

The Raiders are the most unusual entrant in the tournament. Under owner Al Davis and Coach Tom Flores, the Raiders have made one of the most dramatic turnarounds in football history--changing in less than a year from a big-play passing team to a grind-it-out running team.

In other winters they’ve won three Super Bowls with big passes. They’re trying to win this time--in the midst of a revolutionary passing era elsewhere in pro and college ball--with power runs by Marcus Allen.

Old fans of their Oakland teams would have had trouble recognizing the Raiders last Monday night when:

--Allen slammed into the Ram line for 123 yards in 24 carries, averaging 5-plus yards per carry.

--Marc Wilson gained only 188 yards on 29 passes, averaging only 6-plus yards per completion.

It’s a commentary on Davis as a football man that when he found himself this year with an offense that threw the ball ineffectively, he could develop the league’s most effective running attack.

Davis still prefers bombs--he always will--but he’s proving this year what he has never had to prove before: that he can adjust.

Although Allen won the NFL title with 1,759 yards, the way he got there is more amazing than the fact that he won.

Formerly a dancer, Allen has become a hammer. The jabber has turned into a slugger.

Taking advantage of the Ram defense, in which the inside linebackers often lined up three or four yards deeper than most NFL linebackers, Allen repeatedly hit inside with rare quickness and dragged his opponents with him.

In former seasons, Allen often improvised. This season, Flores has him running within the offense, with a more controlled style. In other words, Allen is using his good, big blockers the way a skilled power runner would use them.

Even more surprisingly, Allen has stopped fumbling. This is a thing that almost never happens in football. As the axiom has it, once a fumbler, always a fumbler.

Not Allen.

Flores has obviously performed another little miracle.

What with one thing and another, accordingly, the Raiders have become a different kind of team this year--different from any other Raider edition in a quarter-century, different from any other 1985 pro club.

Where this kind of football will take the Raiders in the playoffs is what’s in doubt.

Running clubs traditionally win by small scores. The Rams could still have won in the fourth quarter Monday night with a major break. Two weeks hence, the Jets or Patriots will be a threat to outscore the Raiders early, or, alternatively, to come from behind.

Passing clubs can do it in many ways.

If, however, the Dolphins are the main threat to the Raiders this winter, Davis and Flores are on the right track. The way to beat Miami is to keep Marino off the field. Allen’s running should do that.

The Rams today stand only 60 minutes away from the NFC title game Jan. 12, probably in Chicago. Although they haven’t always played like champions, the Rams have what it takes to outplay Dallas on Jan. 4.

There are three reasons to favor the Rams over the Cowboys:

--Eric Dickerson appears to have regained most of the form he showed in 1984 and in his 1985 debut at Seattle, where a hamstring pull converted him into just another running back for many games this season.

--Ram Coach John Robinson remains one of the NFL’s greatest motivators ever, judging by what he has achieved with this team.

--Dallas Coach Tom Landry keeps saying he has reached his 1985 goal, which was to win the divisional title. Those who would settle for less than the Super Bowl seldom disappoint themselves.

Few football teams this year match the firepower of Saturday’s wild-card opponents in the Meadowlands, the Jets and Patriots.

Patriot quarterback Tony Eason has thrown some of the most accurate bombs of the season to wide receivers Stanley Morgan and Irving Fryar.

And there are those who believe that the Patriots line up the NFL’s finest two-man backfield, Craig James and Tony Collins.

For the Jets, quarterback Ken O’Brien has won the NFL passing championship--in his first full pro season--and Freeman McNeil, if not injured, could have pressed Allen for the ground-gaining title.

The league’s most spectacular 1985 rookie is probably the Jets’ young wide receiver from Wisconsin, 6-4, 205-pound Al Toon, who joins with wide receiver Wesley Walker and tight end Mickey Shuler to give O’Brien a bunch of targets.

At Wisconsin, Toon studied ballet, jazz dance and the Oriental martial art known as tai chi. On the Badger track team he was a hurdler and triple jumper, and in 1984 he reached the Olympic triple-jump trials.

All that has made him a better man in the NFL, Toon told Boston writers.

“I took ballet and modern jazz for flexibility,� he said. “In ballet, you learn body awareness. In the triple jump, if you’re not aware of your body position, you can hurt yourself. In the hurdles, you clear one, and you have another hurdle.�

So far so good. But with Joe Klecko and Mark Gastineau, the Jets have the tougher defense. The odds are that Gastineau will be here next week for a reunion with Howie Long.

Can the Giants beat the 49ers?

They think so. There is some evidence that the Giants are the NFC’s best balanced team, next, of course, to the Bears.

In the last few weeks, the Giants have been first or second in the conference--each week--in both offense and defense.

The difference between Sunday’s quarterbacks, Phil Simms of the Giants and Joe Montana of the 49ers, is that Simms excels when ahead. A different sort, Montana is at his best playing from behind. He rallied the 49ers to victory again last week.

On a winter day in New Jersey, the 49ers’ objective will be the early lead. If they can get ahead of the Giants, they will neutralize New York’s most formidable weapons, running back Joe Morris and defensive sack artists Leonard Marshall, an end, and Lawrence Taylor, a linebacker.

Marshall, 6-3, 285, a No. 2 draft choice from LSU in 1983, was a disappointment until this season.

“I came into camp as a rookie thinking no one was tougher than I was,� Marshall said. “I figured I was going to come in and kick some tails. What happened was not really embarrassing, but it was upsetting.�

Not any more.