Carolina Built to Conquer San Francisco Not Dallas

The Carolina Panthers, who are home to the Dallas Cowboys in the weekend’s playoff feature, never expected to advance this far this soon--in their second year as an organization.

So today’s game may be a struggle for the Panthers. They weren’t built for the Cowboys. They were built to outpoint the best team in their division, the San Francisco 49ers, whom, in fact, they have outpointed three times in four chances.

The big, swift Carolina linebackers, Lamar Lathon and Kevin Greene, who operate behind a big, swift defensive line, were brought in, for example, for one reason: to overwhelm the undersized 49er offensive line and tear down quarterback Steve Young.

And in the Carolina-San Francisco games, that’s what’s happened.

But if San Francisco fields the NFL’s smallest offensive line, Dallas employs the biggest.

Bill Polian, the general manager who built the Panthers specifically to win at San Francisco, knew he’d have to do something about Dallas some day. He just didn’t think it would be today. If the Panthers can somehow win this one, there’ll be no stopping them.

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Herschel Walker, their large, recycled running back, gives the Cowboys another asset that San Francisco doesn’t have--a streaker who, on kickoff returns, frequently runs the offense into good field position.

Quarterback Troy Aikman, because of Walker, starts few Dallas drives in the hole.

You don’t need a bunch of football ability to run kickoffs. The only requirements are speed and courage. And Walker has a full measure of both.

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In New England today, Pittsburgh Coach Bill Cowher is expected to again test the viability of an offensive approach that has been mainly discredited throughout the century.

The Steelers are winning with a variation of the two-quarterback system, which, in pro football, has been ineffectual since 1951. With an abundance of good players that season, the Rams won their only NFL title in 49 California years with a rotation plan alternating two famous long passers, Bob Waterfield and Norm Van Brocklin.

Cowher’s is a little different. He rotates a passer, Mike Tomczak, with a short-yardage quarterback, Kordell Stewart. But the negatives are the same ones that, except in 1951, wrecked the talented mid-century Rams: In a sport that demands, above all, orderly teamwork, it’s hard for two quarterbacks to maintain the necessary smoothness and continuity.

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The one thing most vividly established in last year’s playoffs was that, in an era such as this, an AFC team can defeat the NFC in the Super Bowl.

Pittsburgh didn’t quite do it last January. But except in offensive design, the Steelers appeared to be a better team than the champion Cowboys.

And in the game that had put the 1995 Steelers in Super Bowl XXX, Indianapolis fell just short of winning the AFC title.

In Super Bowl XXXI this month at New Orleans, the opponents, based on what they’ve all done this season and last, should be an even match. The NFC is no longer a lock.

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The need for instant-replay officiating has been felt repeatedly in the playoffs.

In a 30-27 game, the Jacksonville Jaguars got the ball for their winning field-goal drive in Buffalo last week only after a fumble that wasn’t a fumble.

On the turning-point play, Buffalo quarterback Jim Kelly, during a scramble, suffered scrambled brains when sandwiched downfield but held the ball until one knee was clearly on the ground. As Kelly departed with a concussion, the officials awarded possession to Jacksonville, making the fourth-quarter ruling that decided the game.

Almost certainly, instant-replay officials would have reversed that call as well as two others in the Philadelphia-San Francisco and Indianapolis-Pittsburgh games.

Although the Colts were overpowered in the end, 42-14, they battled Pittsburgh into the fourth quarter of what was still a 21-14 game when an official’s ruling put the Steelers on the Indianapolis 18-yard line to start the rout.

On that play, as Indianapolis quarterback Jim Harbaugh stepped back to pass, he fumbled when sacked instantly by a Pittsburgh safety, Carnell Lake, who was obviously offside as the play began.

The people to blame for such blunders are not the officials, who are mostly professionals, but the NFL’s 30 club owners, who are mostly amateurs. They don’t want to pay for instant replay.