X'd, O'd And Ko'd

"We closed the book on it and filed it," Studley said.

The day before the Super Bowl, the act was almost complete for the 49ers. "We had about a dozen new plays," said Montana, "all of which we were going to use." But Walsh's mind was still buzzing. Something else, one more new thing, let's show 'em one more. Aha, unbalanced line. Dan Audick, the left tackle, would flop over to the right side, between Guard Randy Cross and Tackle Keith Fahnhorst.

That formation made its appearance during those two long first-half drives, picked up decent yardage a couple of times, got stuffed twice and then crept back into the mothballs to be resurrected, when? Super Bowl XVII? Only Walsh knows. The Bengals had differing viewpoints about the unbalanced line. They are proud people. They don't like to feel they've been slickered.

"A minor adjustment for us," Inside Linebacker Jim LeClair said, and then he thought for a moment. "But it was an annoyance, too. We just weren't the finely oiled machine we'd been in the past."

"It really didn't hurt us," Williams said, "but it caused us a lot of consternation on the sideline because we had to spend a great deal of time preparing for things they might possibly do out of it."

"We hadn't used it," Walsh said. "We needed it for short yardage. We got it." He paused. He noted the look of incredulity on the faces around him. Need short yardage? O.K., plug in a new formation on Saturday. Presto, instant short yardage. Is this really the same old NFL we've been used to all these years? Walsh realized the impression he was making. He smiled. His eyes rolled upward.

"It came to me in a vision," he said, "like a man clutching at a ledge, feeling his hands sliding down"

During the week, during one of his many interviews, Montana was asked if he ever worried about Walsh running out of new things to come up with, new tricks, new gimmicks. I mean, after a few years you can only do so many things.

"You know, I was thinking about that the other day," Montana said. "But then I figured Bill would probably just start all over again and find things that worked in high school or junior high."

But still, a new offensive formation one day before the game? It's got to be a little nerve-racking for a Super Bowl quarterback, right? Right, Joe?