Montana Decides on Chiefs : Pro football: The 49ers’ offer to designate him as their starting quarterback for next season proves too late.

The San Francisco 49ers’ pitch for Joe Montana was too late.

Not too little, simply too late.

Montana, who led the 49ers to four Super Bowl victories, decided Monday to go with the Kansas City Chiefs after all.

He had agreed on Saturday to play his next three seasons in Kansas City, making an announcement that woke up the 49ers.

Apparently alarmed by the pro-Montana, anti-Steve Young reaction of many of their fans, they offered to make Montana their designated starting quarterback in San Francisco this season.

Montana wrestled with that Sunday night, then turned the offer down. In a prepared statement, he said:

“It is my opinion, which I expressed to (49er owner Eddie DeBartolo), that it is in the best interest of the 49ers to go with (Young and backup Steve Bono) at quarterback.”

The 49ers expect to get at least a high draft choice from the Chiefs for Montana, but the deal’s details haven’t been worked out.

The 49ers are still after Kansas City’s first-round pick. And, pressuring the Chiefs, 49er President Carmen Policy said: “Our (telephone) lines are open to every team in the league.”

Montana’s friends said it was inconceivable that DeBartolo, an old friend of Montana’s, would in the end deny him the destination he wants.

His friends also said that Montana would have accepted San Francisco’s offer it if it had been made last month.

Asked about that, 49er Coach George Seifert said: “It wouldn’t (have made) that much difference.”

But the 49ers took two irreversible steps last month. First, they gave Montana permission to peddle his talent around the league. Then they designated Young as their franchise player, marking Young as invaluable under new NFL rules.

Most NFL critics agreed that both were sound decisions. The most violent objections came from 49er fans, who in one poll preferred Montana to Young, 85% to 15%.

That largely explains the 49ers’ belated Sunday nomination of Montana as their designated starter.

Although Montana said he will hold a news conference later in the week, his 49er friends, who asked not to be identified, were doing the talking for him Monday. And among other things, they reported that he came back from last week’s Kansas City visit very pleased with the Chiefs’ organization.

In particular, they said, he is looking forward to playing for an old friend, Paul Hackett, the new offensive coordinator of the Chiefs, who is putting in the Bill Walsh short-pass offense in which Montana has been so successful.

In San Francisco, Montana would have been playing for offensive coordinator Mike Shanahan, who reportedly favors Young as the 49er starter, and who, in any case, has embellished Walsh’s old offense with the long pass plays that Young executed so effectively last season.

As the 49ers’ quarterback last season, Young was the NFL’s most valuable player under Seifert, a defensive specialist. The 49ers were 14-2 last year during their first go-round with Shanahan, one of the league’s most creative offensive coaches.

Young is 32 and Montana will turn 37 in June. But more than that, Young, a left-hander, played steadily last year, whereas the right-handed Montana has had the last two years off because of elbow problems. He played 30 minutes in 1992, not at all in 1991.

Montana has come back successfully, 49er doctors say, from elbow and back surgery, five operations in all in recent seasons. After predicting that both problems would end his football career, they concede now that they were wrong.

Nor did Montana fear competing against Young for a starting position. Young is similarly confident that he would have won any competition with Montana. When it appeared Sunday that the 49ers would make Montana their starter this year, Young was unconcerned. He said he didn’t want any trades. He said he would take his chances in San Francisco.