PRO FOOTBALL / BOB OATES : Overconfidence Can Beat Even the Best

For most of the NFL’s better teams, it has been an up-and-down year. The Philadelphia Eagles (10-5) and Miami Dolphins (10-5), to name two, both opened the season with winning streaks. Then both went tailspinning for a while before regaining control.

The Buffalo Bills (11-4), to name another, couldn’t even score a touchdown against the Raiders (6-9) during a midseason sag, losing at the Coliseum, 20-3, before coming back to reach new eminence in New Orleans Sunday, upsetting the 11-4 Saints, 20-16.

Is there an explanation for such behavior?

“I think there is,” Buffalo General Manager Bill Polian said, reflecting on the Bills’ rebirth at the Superdome. “(Pro football) has become mostly a mental game.

“The (good teams) are so much a match for each other physically that it’s tough to sustain excellence over a period of time. Outside pressures affect every team these days--not just the teams with (real troubles).

“When you win a couple, the media says you’re unbeatable, and then you begin to think so yourself. You relax mentally, and get beaten up physically.

“When you lose a couple, you’re a bum. And then, if you’re good enough, you have go out and (prove otherwise).

“The hardest thing for (fans) to understand is that football is a game where good teams can play pretty well, for the most part, and still lose. Or play rather poorly and win.”

More defense: Unless the San Diego Chargers (10-5) are a miracle team--and they clearly have the talent for a few more miracles--the Bills are the AFC’s best positioned championship contender.

Another Super Bowl appearance, their third in a row, is within reach of the Bills because their defense has improved enough this year to compensate for a slight offensive downturn.

At strong safety, for example, Buffalo Coach Marv Levy is starting a strong new performer in Henry Jones, who hasn’t had much media notice yet, although that will doubtless change if he looks as strong in the playoffs as he seemed against the Saints.

“We had hoped Henry would do it this year,” Levy said of his 1991 top draft pick from Illinois. “He’s emerged as an outstanding player (in a) position he never played before.”

A college cornerback, Jones has intercepted eight passes in his first pro season as a starter, and brought them back 236 yards--within 86 of the NFL record.

“He sees the field,” Levy said. “He’s usually in the right place.”

In New Orleans, that was true of the whole Buffalo defense.

Smith better: Obviously, against the champion of the National Conference, Buffalo would better its chances in the Super Bowl with Bruce Smith at defensive end.

The Bills’ best player, Smith sat out the battle of New Orleans on Sunday because of a cracked rib.

Several years ago, when he rose to all-pro stature, Smith was deemed the league’s finest pass rusher by the same critics who said he was consistently mediocre against running plays.

That has changed.

“Bruce has been playing the run with real discipline,” Levy said of Smith, still a feared rusher. “He doesn’t just run around the guy now and try to get to the quarterback before even knowing if it’s a run or a pass.”

That will come as bad news to their NFC opponents if the Bills make it to Pasadena. Their new depth is also bad news.

On a day when the Bills’ other defensive end, Phil Hansen, assumed Smith’s leadership role, their youngsters excelled at the Superdome in relief roles for Smith and linebacker Cornelius Bennett, among others.

Polian, the general manager who recharged the franchise, and his handpicked coach, Levy, are still building up the team that for three years has seemed superior to all others in the NFL’s weaker conference.

Vikings out: Are the San Francisco 49ers (13-2) and Dallas Cowboys (11-3) the only NFC clubs in the race for the Super Bowl?

Well, the championship game isn’t beyond the range of the Philadelphia Eagles (10-5), probably, or the Saints, possibly.

But it is surely beyond the grasp of the new NFC Central champion Minnesota Vikings (10-5).

Dennis Green, the Vikings’ new coach, is trying to get there the hard way, by playing musical quarterbacks. He has made three quarterback changes in the last four weeks.

Sunday’s nominee, Sean Salisbury, was in a 3-3 game in the fourth quarter at Pittsburgh when, in the nick of time, he pulled it out with a nine-play, 61-yard drive that ended with a field goal.

“I hate to hear people say we can’t pass the football,” said Salisbury, a USC quarterback not long ago. “That’s me they’re talking about. I feel I can throw the ball with anybody.”

That’s hard to do, though, in an organization whose coaching staff keeps changing quarterbacks.

The most difficult way to play that position, they all say, is with someone looking over your shoulder, ready to pounce, if there’s an error.

Even the best pro football players tighten up when made to feel that nothing but perfection will keep them on the field.

Green, however, is adamant.

“We’ve got to have the courage, the guts, the aggressiveness to find the right (quarterback),” he said, defending his rotation policy.

He will be breaking new ground in an old league if his experiment succeeds.

Montana trouble: San Francisco’s coach, George Seifert, quite possibly put the 49ers in a similar predicament last week by activating Joe Montana.

That was probably a mistake.

And it doesn’t help the 49ers that it was virtually forced on Seifert by the widespread clamor for Montana in the Bay Area.

Activating him now is an unnecessary and potentially disruptive move on a team that has won all year with his former backup, Steve Young, and that won last year with Young’s backup, Steve Bono.

It could be that Young and Bono are a better 1-2 quarterback combination than any other NFL team can put on the field this season except the Dallas Cowboys, who back up Troy Aikman with Steve Beuerlein.

Against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Saturday, Young won the game with two high-risk long passes. Even though he has been completing that kind for years, such a pass is never an automatic.

This time, wide receiver Jerry Rice couldn’t shake single coverage on either play. He was so closely guarded that if Young had been six inches off the mark--a thing that happens often on everyone’s 30-yard passes, especially Montana’s--the 49ers could have lost the game to one of the league’s worst teams.

And such a defeat, no doubt, would have turned up the San Francisco roar for Montana to a divisive pitch. An outspoken athlete, Rice is already on record with a stated preference for Montana.

The San Francisco fans, writers and older players who long for their old quarterback are basically reliving their youth. And putting an unnecessary load of pressure on Young.

Quote Department:

--Bill Cowher, Pittsburgh coach, on the club’s immediate future if quarterback Neil O’Donnell doesn’t return from the injury list in time to rescue the Steelers from their other quarterback, Bubby Brister: “A one-dimensional (running) team is not going to go very far in the playoffs.”

--Cris Dishman, Houston cornerback, on the Oilers’ problem: “We’re a good team on paper, but we need to be a good team on the field.”

--John Elway, Denver quarterback, on whether he is in the middle of a conflict between Dan Reeves and Pat Bowlen, the Bronco owner who, reportedly, wants to bring back 49er offensive coordinator Mike Shanahan as his 1993 coach: “The media may want to put me there, but I’m staying out of it.”

--Wilber Marshall, Redskin linebacker, on defensive coach Richie Petitbon: “He treats his players like adults. He just comes into the room and says: ‘OK, this is what we did well, this is what we need to do better, and this is what we’re going to do.’ ”