Without Rice, 49ers Show They Can Move The Football Young Directs A Running Game That Chews Up Carolina 34-21
The team that perfected the finesse of the West Coast Offense also knows how to play smashmouth.
The San Francisco 49ers proved that Monday night, rushing for 219 yards - 141 by Garrison Hearst - to beat the Carolina Panthers 34-21 and avenge two embarrassing losses from last season.
It was Steve Young, without the injured Jerry Rice, running an almost flawless short-pass, ball-control offense, and Merton Hanks picking off two passes by Kerry Collins to set up scores as the 49ers won their fourth straight.
“I’m not exactly Woody Hayes - 3 yards and a cloud of dust,” said 49ers coach Steve Mariucci, who took over this season with a reputation as a passing-game guru. “But when you’ve got to chew the clock and it’s working, you stick with it.”
“It just came, it just happened,” Young said of his team’s success on the ground. “I don’t remember the last time we were able to rush for 6 and 7 yards on first down.”
All that made this the first Monday night game in four weeks that didn’t come down to the final seconds. The last two, Pittsburgh-Jacksonville and Philadelphia-Dallas, were decided on bungled field goal attempts on the final play, and Kansas City beat Oakland the previous week on a touchdown with three seconds left.
Not this week.
The 49ers (4-1) scored on their first drive, led 17-0 after 18 minutes, 27-7 in the third quarter and put the game away with an 81-yard drive in the fourth quarter that took just four seconds short of 10 minutes.
“The 49ers set the tempo from the start,” Carolina coach Dom Capers said.
They also spread the scoring around.
Young, who was 16-for-25 for 152 yards, hit Terrell Owens with an 8-yard TD pass and scored on a 2-yard scramble. Hearst went in from 3 yards out and Terry Kirby capped the long drive with a 3-yard run. Gary Anderson added field goals of 25 and 48 yards.
The game continued a season of trouble for the Panthers (2-3), who had won three of four games from the 49ers in their two seasons.
“It’s a new year,” Hanks said. “We’re not going to hold on to old baggage.”
For the Panthers, it’s a case of finding that old stuff.
“I don’t care if I was in my backyard and my sister and my brother were watching,” Carolina cornerback Eric Davis said. “That was embarrassing. And the number of people watching isn’t going to greaten the pain or lessen the pain.”
This was their third loss without a win this season at Ericsson Stadium, where they were 9-0 last season. And it dropped them two games and a tiebreaker behind San Francisco in the NFC West, which they won last season as a secondyear team, largely because they beat the 49ers twice.
Collins, the third-year quarterback who came back two weeks ago from a fractured jaw sustained in the exhibition season, had four turnovers for the second straight game - three interceptions and a fumble on a snap at the San Francisco 18 in the second quarter.
The high spot of his evening was a 17-yard touchdown pass to Rae Carruth with four minutes left in the first half that cut San Francisco’s lead to 17-7. Collins, 11-for-24 for 126 yards, left after being shaken up early in the fourth quarter, and backup Steve Beuerlein continued a drive that was capped by an 8-yard TD pass to Rocket Ismail, who spun away from two tacklers into the end zone.
The Panthers’ final TD came with 1:14 left when Beuerlein hit Mark Carrier with a 20-yard pass.
Notes
The 49ers have outscored opponents 80-16 in the first half after five games. … Gary Anderson’s 48-yard field goal 17 seconds before intermission was his longest since 1994 when he played for the Pittsburgh Steelers. His longest last year with Philadelphia was 46 yards. … Michael Bates, first in the NFC in kickoff returns with a 29.0-yard average, ripped off a 53-yarder for the Panthers in the second quarter - his third return of 50 or more yards this season. … Merton Hanks’ two interceptions gave him 23 for his career. … The 49ers have yet to allow a rushing TD in ‘97.