Dateline: SAN FRANCISCO
The most serious consideration in determining a winner between the Bears and the San Francisco 49ers is the genius gap.
The genius gap is even more important than the finesse factor, which pretty much favors the Bears. The finesse factor can be dismissed simply. The 49ers can not dance on broken limbs.
The genius gap takes a little more examination.
No one has ever started an argument by saying that Mike Ditka is no genius and that Bill Walsh is. There has never been the first rumor to challenge this fact of life in the National Football League.
Not even the surprising presence of the Bears in the NFC title game has moved anyone to accuse Ditka of geniusness, though cruelty has been mentioned. THIS IS NO SMALL achievement for Ditka, since any coach who makes it this far is immediately elevated to at least the level of wizard, which, as we know, is a genius with a marked deck.
Modesty prevents Walsh from announcing his own genius, but he has never been known to quarrel with anyone who found it lurking, like designer labels, under common wash-and-wear.
Inspiration is important to geniuses and can attack at the most inconvenient times. Walsh will be engaged in an ordinary human function and be seized by his genius, immediately reaching for whatever paper is close at hand to record a new pass pattern or blocking scheme.
Thomas Edison was cursed in the same way, of course, and being from an earlier time often inscribed his best ideas on the pages of a mail-order catalog.
DITKA HAS NO such burden, being remarkably free of complications. He operates from a single vision: The tougher team wins.
Other coaches may be tempted, for example, to exploit the speed of Willie Gault, but Ditka refuses, he says, to change his offense for one man. Not that Walter Payton is twins, but we must remember that we are dealing with Ditka’s math.
And Ditka can think, after all. He is forever having Payton throw touchdowns as a halfback, a riddle that remains unsolved no matter how many times it is used. Taking a safety with eight minutes to play in Washington is evidence of his cleverness. It so impressed the Redskins that they refused to rub it in by scoring themselves.
The 49ers are the more experienced playoff team, as were the Raiders and the Redskins, both of whom have already been where the Bears want to go. Hunger can be more lethal than genius.
AS THE HOST TEAM, the 49ers have the sympathy of witnesses. No problem. The Bears have long been strangers at home.
The 49ers have a sensational quarterback, but the Bears have one who . . . well, let’s skip that one.
Genius is still the concern. Walsh has been a genius for some time and is comfortable being one. He was, in fact, the first new genius in football since Hank Stram, who invented the moving pocket, it being the answer, of course, to the balky zipper.
Stram no longer creates new and marvelous ways to play the old game, nor does Dick Vermeil, another recent genius, but now they dissect the imagination of others from the broadcast booth, which is where all geniuses eventually migrate, even if this does not explain John Madden.
Don Coryell of San Diego drew the blueprint for the modern genius yet has never been able to read his own writing. Tom Flores of the deposed Raiders is not a genius, but there never has been a better ventriloquist than Al Davis, who is. Joe Gibbs of Washington, a reluctant but verifiable genius, is still bandaging his Redskins after last week’s collision with Ditka’s Bears.
THE OTHER TWO coaches left in the playoffs, Don Shula of Miami and Chuck Noll of Pittsburgh, have more Super Bowls between them than Walsh has game plans. Still, Shula had to go undefeated to give either himself, or his disciple, Noll, one coach of the year honor between them, an insult for any respectable genius.
All of which, I hope, lays to rest the question of the genius gap between the Bears and 49ers, the only reason I can imagine for the point spread to have climbed into double figures. It takes a genius to figure that one out.
Not only will the Bears beat the spread, they will beat the 49ers. I make it 17-13. PHOTO: (color) The 49ers’ offense revolves around quarterback Joe Montana, but he insists on playing a reluctant hero role in San Francisco, Steve Daley. AP Laserphoto.