On a weekend where the 49ers lost to the lowly Saints, the expansion Carolina Panthers won their third straight game and Deion Sanders was running pass patterns for the Cowboys, there was one thing that held to NFL form: Jerry Rice catching passes.

Rice, the career San Francisco wide receiver, has been doing that on a weekly basis for his 11 years as a pro, and Sunday against the Saints was no different.

His sure hands pulled down eight balls against the Saints, but it was a 13-yard reception early in the second quarter that really gave the 49er fans something to cheer about.

With the catch, the perennial all-pro surpassed James Lofton's all-time receiving record of 14,004 yards, and by the end of the game Rice had set the new pinnacle of pass-catching prowess at 14,040 yards.

Yet after the contest, Rice could only talk about the one that got away--a fourth-quarter pass on third-and-18 that was batted away by Saints' cornerback Jimmy Spencer.

"I should have made the catch," Rice said. "If I would have made it, we would have won the football game."

In 11 years, the 16th draft pick in the 1985 draft has caught 148 touchdown passes (an NFL career record), won three Super Bowls, made 877 career receptions--and all he really could think about was an incomplete pass in Sunday's loss. That is Jerry Rice at his finest.

Jerry Rice is to football what Cal Ripken is to baseball--a soft-spoken hero whose phenomenal accomplishments on the field contrast with his dignified manner off the field and in the locker room.

On the field, Rice, like Ripken, has been a model of consistency--not missing a non-strike game over his 11-year career. That's 164 regular-season games (plus 18 postseason games) straight on the gridiron. That's Ripkenesque.

And by the looks of things, he's not slowing down. He's the same half of the Montana-to-Rice connection that led the 49ers to two straight Super Bowls in the late eighties and won him a Super Bowl MVP award in Super Bowl XXIII.

He still leads the 49ers in catches and is near the top in the league in receiving. If all goes well another couple of strong years should net him two more career records.

Currently he is 30 games from breaking Art Monk's record for consecutive games with a reception, and 57 receptions away from eclipsing Monk's career mark of 934 catches.

In his years of catching passes from the likes of Joe Montana, Steve Young and now Elvis Grbac (playing for the injured Young), Jerry Rice has made the 5-yard slant pattern an institution in the City by the Bay.

One wonders just how many of those 14,040 yards were off those 5-yard patterns turned into 80-yard game-breaking touchdowns with defensive backs flailing in his wake.

So while Jerry Rice may only remember the incomplete pass in the fourth quarter of Sunday's game, fans for many years will be remembering him.