This year`s National Football League draft marks the 11th anniversary of the time every team almost got Joe Montana.

Every team except the San Francisco 49ers let him get away. The 49ers have luck and Ernie Plank to thank.

Scout Plank hands off most of the credit to Bill Walsh, who came across his good fortune quite by accident.

It was Walsh`s first draft, and the 49ers didn`t have a No. 1 choice. They needed a fast wide receiver, and Walsh went to Los Angeles to work out UCLA star James Owens, their targeted second-round pick. Lo and behold, guess who happened to be throwing Owens the ball?

''I have no idea why Joe Montana was in Los Angeles that day,'' Plank said.

Walsh came home on the eve of the draft and started scrambling for more information on the kid from Notre Dame. It was Plank`s territory.

A former coach with John Pont at Northwestern, Plank was a rookie scout with the 49ers. He had given Montana a grade of 7 on a scale of 8.

''I loved Joe,'' Plank said.

Plank recalled that the National Scouting Combine, to which the 49ers belonged, had graded Montana a 5.1.

''I was just a dumb rookie scout, but a 5.1 was a `not make it` grade,''

Plank said.

Plank thought better. He recalled the 1975 Northwestern-Notre Dame game at Notre Dame, when Montana was only a sophomore.

''We felt if we were going to beat Notre Dame, that would be the year,''

Plank said.

When Greg Boykin scored first for the Wildcats, Northwestern was confident its defense could rattle Irish starting quarterback Rick Slager.

''For some reason, (Dan) Devine was playing Slager,'' Plank said. ''We knew he didn`t like pressure, and we thought we could get in his face. He wasn`t very big.''

Northwestern proved too right for its own good. A blitz by safety Pete Shaw knocked Slager out of the game.

''As soon as he hit him, I remember thinking, `Aw God, hit him, but not that hard,` '' Plank said. ''As long as Slager was in there, we had a chance.''

Enter Montana. Notre Dame won 31-7.

''We knew Montana was a good quarterback, but for some reason Devine did everything not to start him,'' Plank said.

Plank filed the experience away and drew on it four years later. Curiously, Montana was no secret to anyone paying attention. The thing he has done best for 10 years as a pro is the same thing he did at Notre Dame: Come back and win.

He didn`t even play in 1976 at Notre Dame because Devine insisted on staying with Slager. But even though Slager beat Northwestern 48-0 the following year, Plank couldn`t get Montana out of his mind.

''We knew he was a streak passer. Always has been. When you play against Joe, the time you better worry is when he`s 1 for 10 and you think you`ve got him. He`ll go 10 for 10 on you,'' Plank said.

Walsh knew he wanted a quarterback, and most people assumed he would bring Steve Dils with him from Stanford. But on the 82nd pick, on the third round, one pick after the Los Angeles Rams chose Kansas center Mike Wellman, the 49ers took Montana.

''I guess there was some debate on Dils,'' Plank said. ''Until then, Joe`s name was down in the pack. I was a rookie and hadn`t been around. I was laying off, not pushing. Call it lack of confidence, but I liked him. I had 26 states, and I had Joe rated the fifth- or sixth-highest player in my area.''

The 49ers had Steve DeBerg at quarterback at the time.

''Great between the 20s, but couldn`t get the ball over,'' Plank said.

Often, football teams get so wrapped up in height, weight, speed, strength and intelligence on draft day that they forget what the sport is all about: scoring, or preventing, touchdowns.

''When we coached at Indiana,'' said Plank, ''we had a little quarterback named Harry Gonso, who was only about 5-9. But he got the ball over the goal line.''

They say the great quarterbacks go in the first round. The Indianapolis Colts watched a great one go in 1983 when John Elway refused to play for them and forced a trade to Denver. The Colts think they finally have his replacement in Jeff George, and they paid the Atlanta Falcons dearly for him. In 1986, the Colts drafted quarterback Jack Trudeau out of Illinois in the second round. In 1988, the Colts drafted quarterback Chris Chandler out of Washington in the third round. Obviously, they don`t believe either is a future Joe Montana. In 1956, the Colts signed John Unitas as a free agent, but that was before Colts General Manager Jim Irsay was born.