Young engineers prime-time drive

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Monday, January 4, 1999 3:00 AM CST

By J. Andrew Cohen Lee Newspapers

SAN FRANCISCO The sweat had washed away, but not the pain.

Darren Sharper knew it would take more than soap and water to disinfect this wound, one that cut right through the Green Bay Packers' heart and his own personal pride.

Throughout Sunday's 30-27 NFC Wild Card loss to the San Francisco 49ers, Sharper made big plays from his free safety position. He forced an early fumble, made a diving interception in the second quarter and finished with five tackles.

Meanwhile, 49ers wideout Terrell Owens fumbled on his team's first drive, dropped a sure touchdown pass in the third quarter and muffed what would have been a irst-down catch with just over four minutes left in the game.

But none of that mattered when Owens faked strong safety LeRoy Butler to the outside, raced down the middle and snared a 25-yard touchdown pass from Steve Young with three seconds left. After a dropping easy passes all day, Owens squeezed this one despite taking big pop from Sharper and Pat Terrell.

``Owens went up and made a hell of a catch, but I felt we should have deflected it," Sharper said. ``I feel I could have played it differently to get my hands on the ball, but those things happen.

``It's tough, and somehow I have to try not to dwell on it. It can do nothing but give me headaches. We know we're a better team, but that doesn't matter if you don't play your best."

While the Packers did not play their best against 49ers tailback Garrison Hearst (22 carries for 128 yards), they came pretty close against Young. Before the winning drive, he had completed only 11 of 23 passes for 106 yards with two interceptions.

But after a rough 58 minutes that even drew some boos from the normally mild-mannered partisans at 3Com Park, Young went seven of nine for 76 yards on San Francisco's final drive.

``I feel bad because we were on the field when they made the biggest play of the game," Packers defensive coordinator Fritz Shurmur said. ``They had four verticals (receivers) and we had four deep and four underneath coverage exactly designed to take that play away.

``If I had to make that call 50 times, I'd make the same one. I wouldn't blitz it because (Young) is going to three-step drop and hang it up for the inside guy or the outside receiver and we have four deep safeties sitting back there to play the ball. They made the play and we didn't."

The 49ers began their last drive with 1:50 left after Green Bay took a 27-23 lead on Brett Favre's 15-yard touchdown pass to Antonio Freeman. Fittingly, San Francisco used every weapon available to snap its maddening 5-game losing streak against the Packers.

J.J. Stokes opened the march with catches of 17 and 9 yards against Green Bay's dime defense. On second-and-10 from the Packers' 47, Jerry Rice made his first catch of the day and nearly lost the game for his team.

Video replays showed that Rice fumbled before his knee touched the ground when safety Scott McGarrahan slapped the ball loose. But the officials ruled that Rice was down before coughing up the ball.

``It was clearly a fumble," McGarrahan said. ``But all I know is that we didn't get the ball."

Short catches by Terry Kirby and Hearst out of the backfield took San Francisco to Green Bay's 25-yard line, and cornerback Craig Newsome nearly intercepted a pass for Stokes with 8 seconds left.

Then, disaster.

``We were not in a prevent, but our defense was just not aggressive enough when Young threw the ball," Butler said. ``The first time he threw it, we almost had an interception and then they came back with that same play."

For a dramatically different result.

``This is probably the worst way you can lose a football game, on a play like that," Packers linebacker Bernardo Harris said. ``It really is devastating."

J. Andrew Cohen is a reporter for the Wisconsin State Journal in Madison.

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