As part of his preparation, Jim Fassel, like any other coach in the National Football League, peruses the newspapers from the city of his upcoming opponent. When he thumbed through this week's stories from San Francisco, it stopped his leisurely breakfast.
Looking for a weakness in the 49ers, he found stories deriding the team's inconsistencies, and a questioning tone, even from within the team, that it is the same offensive power it has been for years. Jerry Rice was voicing dissatisfaction with the number of times he gets the ball, even though he has 61 catches.
Fassel did not have to compare the stories to his own notes that show the 49ers (8-3) with the leading offense in the N.F.L. to know that it could be a long Monday night at 3Com Park for the Giants.
This season's model of the 49ers has differed little from 49ers teams of the past, averaging a league-best 422.2 yards per game. The 49ers are on pace to finish the season with 6,754 yards, just 182 shy of the N.F.L. record. Steve Young has guided the offense with 27 touchdown passes and Garrison Hearst needs just 61 yards to record his second straight 1,000-yard rushing season.
For their part, the Giants (4-7) bring an offense that went 11 quarters without a touchdown before finally breaking through in the second half against the Philadelphia Eagles last week. And the Giants have not scored a touchdown in their last four games in San Francisco. The last time the Giants reached the end zone in San Francisco was Nov. 27, 1989.
Short of controlling the ball from the opening kickoff right through the end of the game, the Giants may have trouble keeping up offensively with the 49ers. While Kent Graham is still finding his way in his new role as the starting quarterback for the Giants, the 49ers are in a comfort zone.
Asked if he had experienced that queasy feeling of seeing the hand go up and the ball soar over his head, Sparks said that it had never happened to him. But good or bad, he does not want to dwell on the Giants' history of troubles in San Francisco. He is focused on trying to contain Rice and the 49ers' other receivers, J. J. Stokes and Terrell Owens.
''I don't like going back to the past,'' Sparks said. ''That doesn't matter to me. What actually matters is your next game, your next play. That's the only thing I can think of. I was there when they beat us bad there, but I also remember when we beat them bad here.
The Giants have faced other versions of the West Coast offense this season with varying success. Against the Green Bay Packers, the Giants were roughed up for 37 points. Against the Eagles, the Giants posted their first shutout in eight years.