All afternoon Alex Smith threw crisp passes. The defense of the 49ers forced fumbles and hassled the quarterback. Finally San Francisco was able to produce the type of error free performance on both offense and defense that coach Mike Singletary had been wanting to see out of his team.

In Smith’s best game so far this season, he threw short touchdown passes over to Vernon Davis and Frank Gore. It was a sound game for the 49ers all around on Sunday as they defeated the Jaguars 20-3.

The 49ers began the season planning to be defined by their running game, but with Smith behind the center they are starting to open things up. Five receivers had at least four catches.

Smith said, it’s the growth of our offense. You need to be balanced in the NFL. You need to have different ways to win.

Joe Nedney booted field goals from 27 and 46 yards for San Francisco (5-6) who snapped Jacksonville’s three game winning streak. They also spoiled the homecoming to the Bay Area for Jack Del Rio, Jaguars coach, and Maurice Jones-Drew, running back.

The loss by Jacksonville clinched the title of the AFC South for undefeated Indianapolis, who earlier on Sunday rallied to defeat Houston on the road.

Jones-Drew, who was a prep star for De La Salle High School over on the opposite side of the San Francisco Bay, rush for 75 yards. It’s the first time he has rushed for 1,000 yards in a season in his career. Jones-Drew is also only the second player for the Jacksonville franchise to do so, joining the seven efforts of Fred Taylor. However, his five game streak of scoring a running touchdown was snapped.

The defense of the 49ers recovered two fumbles off of sacks in the second half, including an early fourth quarter hit by Parys Haralson on David Garrard for a loss of 20 yards.

Smith passed for 232 yards and had no sacks or interceptions. It was the best game for Smith since he took over in late October as San Francisco’s starting quarterback. Gore caught seven passes, Davis and Josh Morgan each had six, and Michael Crabtree and Delanie Walker had four each.

Mike Singletary said, this week the very best thing I saw happen was leadership on offense. In terms of players saying, coach I think this will work. I think this is what we need to do. What about doing this or can we do the spread more? Put it on us receivers.

Singletary credited Smith, Davis and even the rookie Crabtree, their top pick in this year’s draft, for offering input.

A field goal of 32 yards was kicked by Josh Scobee for Jacksonville (6-5), but he also missed a 40 yard attempt wide to the left early second quarter as well as a 21 yarder during the fourth quarter that hit the upright on the left. Afterward he had a disgusted look on his face. His second field goal miss tied for the shortest miss this season in the NFL. Lawrence Tynes of the Giants also missed an attempt from 21 yards during Week 3 versus the Buccaneers.

Scobee said, missing that short one is just totally unacceptable, simple and plain. For that I take full responsibility. I’m a professional after all.

Why does Jacksonville have all of these woes on the West Coast? On October 11, the Jaguars lost in Seattle 41-0. On Sunday they were never a threat. It was the second time, the first coming in 2004, in the history of the franchise that the Jaguars have played two games on the road out West.

Garrard was able to complete six out of the first seven passes he threw, but didn’t have much to show for it. During the first half, the Jaguars only managed to get six first downs. They did out gain San Francisco 357 yards to 284 yards. Torry Holt had a reception for his 164th game in a row. He passed Andre Reed and moved up to 10th place on career yards receiving with 13,226.

The victory for San Francisco was the type of methodical win that coach Singletary has insisted that his team is capable of producing.

Since their promising 3-1 start, the 49ers had lost five of their last six games. The last four losses have been by seven points or less. Singletary and the 49er players admit that they have beaten themselves regularly.

All during the week we emphasized that, not to beat ourselves, said Haralson.

During the first half, Smith threw the ball 29 times. It was his career high for one half. The most he had had was 18 attempts. Singletary was happy with Smith’s heads up, sound decision making.

On third down and 10 at the 36 yard line mid second quarter, Smith connected on a pass play of 27 yards with Crabtree, moving San Francisco for the very first time into the red zone.

Then Morgan caught a 6 yard pass, setting up a touchdown catch of 3 yards by Davis two plays later. For the 49ers tight end it was his ninth touchdown reception of the season.

Smith faked to the right and then turned to the left. He found Davis wide open in the end zone’s left corner.

Late first half Davis had a catch of 30 yards on fourth down and one as well.

Aaron Rodgers definitely enjoyed defeating the 49ers. After all that’s the football team that he grew up cheering for. It’s also the team that on the 2005 draft day snubbed him.

However neither Rodger or Green Bay were gloating after their 30-24 win over the 49ers on Sunday. During the second half the Packers (6-4) almost blew their big lead. They also may now have to try to hang in there in the race for the playoffs without two of their key defensive players: Aaron Kampman, outside linebacker, and Al Harris, cornerback, who both suffered knee injures that are potentially very serious.

During the second half both Harris and Kampman were carted off and back to the Packers locker room. Mike McCarthy, Packers coach, admitted there is concern over the severity of the two players injuries.

McCarthy said, those two injuries hopefully are not as serious as we are thinking.

The Packers coach added that the team would hopefully know more on Monday about Harris and Kampman. In the meantime they will try to carry the things they did do right from the first half over into their game in Detroit on Thursday.

If Rodgers was feeling any satisfaction from defeating the team that had passed him up in the draft, the quarterback was keeping those thoughts to himself.

Rodgers, a Chico, California native said, it’s a lot of fun playing against a team you idolized when you were growing up. Every Sunday I watched them after church. Those guys deserved a lot of credit. They fought harder during the second half.

Alex Smith, San Francisco’s No. 1 draft pick the year they passed up Rodgers, was able to rebound from his miserable start. After halftime he threw three touchdown passes for San Francisco (4-6), include Michael Crabtree’s first career touchdown catch.

However the 49ers’ rally fell short, making their path to making it into the playoffs a lot harder.

Mike Singletary, 49ers coach said, we either dig ourselves into a big hole early on and there’s too much for us to overcome or we get ahead and end up getting too comfortable when we have the lead. We need to start settling down. The young guys need to settle down some and just play the game of football.

At halftime Green Bay led the game 23-3 and during the four quarter 30-10 after Nick Collins picked off an Alex Smith pass, setting up a touchdown run of one yard by Ryan Grant, who had 129 yards rushing.

Josh Morgan of the 49ers had a kickoff return of 76 yards. Smith then connected with Vernon Davis on a touchdown pass of 24 yards to cut the Packers’ lead down to 30-17.

During the next series, with Kampman and Harris sidelined, Smith completed long passes to Crabtree and Isaac Bruce. That set up a fourth down and 5 play from the 10 yard line of the Packers. With 5:56 remaining, Smith threw a touchdown pass to Frank Gore and cut the Packers lead even further down to 30-24.

Charles Woodson, Packers cornerback said, just because you have a lead over a team that doesn’t mean they will quit. They didn’t quit. During the second half we gave up some big plays to them. We let them stay in and gave them confidence.

The success for the 49ers according to Davis came mostly from the team’s shotgun spread formations. He suggested using the spread more frequently.

Davis said, we need to come in from the very start and take advantage of what we can. If it means spread the ball, we maybe should do it. It’s not my call though. I don’t call our plays.

The starting quarterback of the 49ers wasn’t sold though, stating they were too deep into the season for making major changes.

Green Bay, despite all the swings in momentum, was able to hold on and win. During their recent losses to Tampa Bay and Minnesota they didn’t do that.

McCarthy said, this is something we definitely can build from. In the past we had some of those swings in momentum. Two weeks ago we had that and we didn’t recover.

Following the touchdown by Gore, Green Bay put a drive together, including a crucial third down conversion that Rodgers got on a quarterback sneak on that allowed the Packers to run the clock out.

Rodgers went 32 for 45 for a total of 344 yards passing, with 274 of his yards coming during the first half when Green Bay built their 23-3 lead. The offensive line for the Packers did a serviceable job. On Sunday they gave up two sacks. Coming in, Rodgers had been sacked 41 times, the worst in the league.

Smith went 16 for 33 for a total of 227 yards passing. Although his rally in the second half was impressive, the performance by Rodgers provided more evidence that Green Bay got a better deal from San Francisco selecting Smith in 2005 as their No. 1 draft pick. Rodgers had also been considered as the top draft pick, but ended up slipping all the way down to No. 24 where the Packers selected him.

Smith said, I’m happy for the guy. He’s been through a lot of adversity. That deal on draft day and then coming here and sitting behind Brett Favre. Then that Brett Favre thing happening here. He had big shoes he needed to fill. The guy stepped up.

The defense for San Francisco figured that the short week would be an advantage for them. In four days Jay Cutler wouldn’t be able to change too much, so the 49ers had a good idea of what they could expect from the Bears quarterback.

Mike Singletary, 49ers head coach, didn’t man handle his old team exactly. Cutler instead handed a desperate San Francisco team a win that was very much needed.

Frank Gore had 104 yards rushing and scored a touchdown. Meanwhile Cutler threw five interceptions, his career high. The last one came on the final play of the game into the end zone. With their 10-6 win on Thursday night the 49ers snapped their losing streak at four games.

Mark Roman, 49ers safety referring to Cutler said, I don’t think he was really trying to force it. He was just trying to make some plays when they needed them at the time. We knew that the football would be up in the air. If our coverages were sound we knew we would have a chance.

Alex Smith, 49ers quarterback, got his first win in eight starts. His last victory came versus St. Louis in Week 2 of the 2007 season. However, the game was interesting right until the very end.

With 2:53 remaining in the game, after Singletary made the decision to punt on fourth down and six from the 34 yard line of Chicago versus his former team, Cutler led the Bears down to the 12 yard line of the 49ers with only 13 seconds left to play. On first down Cutler threw an incomplete pass, and then on his next attempt Michael Lewis picked off the pass inside the end zone as time expired. It was the first win for the 49ers since October 4 when they routed the Rams 35-0.

For the post game news conference Cutler showed up still in his uniform except for his jersey and pads.

Cutler said, it was very tough out there. I apologize to our defense. Our whole offense I think needs to apologize. Our defense played great and kept us in the game even with all of our turnovers.

It was far from being pretty, with two struggling teams in the game who are still trying to make it into the playoffs.

Just four days after San Francisco (4-5) had four turnovers leading to 24 points in their loss to Tennessee 34-27, the 49ers had nine penalties and Smith was sacked two times and threw an interception.

All game long Cutler took opportunities away from Chicago (4-5). The Bears, who were penalized 10 times, lost their second game in a row and fourth in the last five games. Patrick Willis, with his 11 tackles, wreaked havoc on Chicago.

Smith said, it’s definitely nice being on the other side of that.

Cutler’s five pick offs tied him for the most interceptions thrown by a Bears quarterback since October 2, 1960 when Zeke Bratkowski had seven in a game Chicago lost to Baltimore 42-7.

It was the second time Cutler has thrown four interceptions or more this season. In total he has 17, the worst in the NFL. Cutler became the first Bears quarterback to throw four interceptions in two games during a season since Billy Wade did it in 1962.

Cutler said, I’ve played before in Thursday games and had success. That didn’t affect us for this game. We saw everything that was coming. They didn’t surprise us. The fact is we didn’t execute.

Robbie Gould had 38 and 50 yard field goals for the Bears. It quickly became a game of what team would make fewer mistakes and keep possession.

Singletary said, on offense we did barely enough to win this game.

The game was the first time as a head coach that Singletary faced off against his former team. The ex linebacker and Hall of Famer played his entire 12 year NFL career with Chicago. He played in 10 Pro Bowls, was awarded Defensive Player of the Year two times, and was on Chicago’s 1985 Super Bowl championship team.

Singletary wasn’t interested in any of the hype surrounding him facing his old team. He insisted that he didn’t have time to think about anything except coaching San Francisco to get a win and save their season.

After the game Singletary said, we were just playing another team on our schedule.

In was the seventh home win game in a row for San Francisco versus Chicago, including one playoff game. The last victory for Chicago in Candlestick Park was in 1985 during the Bears Super Bowl championship season. That year it was Singletary who led the Bears defense. The previous three games in the series had been won by Chicago.

Late second quarter Gore had a touchdown run of 14 yards following the second interception by Cutler. Going into halftime the 49ers led 7-3.

Alex Brown, Bears defensive end said referring to Cutler, everyone has bad days at work. We need to have his back. We do have his back.

Early fourth quarter Joe Nedney kicked a field goal of 21 yards. During the opening drive for the 49ers he had missed wide right on an attempt of 39 yards. It was the first time he had missed a field goal from less than 40 yards all season.

Neither one of the quarterbacks had impressive stats. Cutler went 29 for 52 for a a total of 307 yards passing and Smith went 16 for 23 for a total of 118 yards. The Bears out gained the 49ers 350 yards to 216 yards.

Vernon Davis, 49ers tight end, fired the Bears with his Tuesday trash talk. He said, I think we will be able to destroy their front. Adewale Ogunleye, Bears defensive lineman, and Davis mixed it up in a jawing session during the pregame. Prior to the coin toss some of the captions for Chicago avoided shaking the hand of Davis.

Davis doled out his own form of punishment. He bowled over Nick Roach, Bears linebacker, sending him briefly to the sideline during his only catch in the half. Davis also received two penalties for false starts.

Davis said, it’s a big relief. To get this win is a blessing. We need to keep on winning.

With 3:53 remaining the 49ers punting the ball, giving Chicago one last chance.

Before the very eyes of his teammates Vince Young has been evolving. From the bench last season he watched Kerry Collins for all those months believing that his time could once again come.

The gritty play of Young’s at the quarterback position has provided the Titans with a morale boost that has been very much needed after their 0-6 start. Tennessee has won two games in a row.

Chris Johnson, only six plays after having his touchdown run of 81 yards overturned, got a pitch from Young, scoring the go ahead touchdown on a run of 2 yards and leading Tennessee to their second consecutive victory on Sunday by defeating the stumbling 49ers 34-27.

Young proved that his comeback is a legitimate one. He outplayed Alex Smith, fellow first round pick in the draft, down the final stretch. For the second time in two weeks, Young has led Tennessee (2-6) into the end zone and been clutch when it really mattered.

Kevin Mawae, Titans center said referring to the ordeal of Young, you go through a maturing process when you are not the main guy anymore. He had to sit back for over a year and see what someone like Kerry does. He has been in the NFL for 15 years. You see how he handles a 13-3 successful season and also how handled the 0-6 start and all of those ups and downs. There’s a lot you can’t help learning from.

On fourth down and just inches to go, Johnson converted to get his second touchdown for the game to make up for the lost six points that were taken away a few minutes before when it was determined that he went out of bounds during his long run. When the Titans went for it on fourth down when they could have tied the game with the field goal showed that Jeff Fisher, Titans head coach, had faith that Young and Company could get the job done.

Last Sunday Tennessee defeated Jacksonville to end their losing streak at eight games which dated all the way back to last December. The team suddenly had some momentum, which was very much needed. The Titans now have back to back victories for the first time since defeating Detroit and Cleveland during last season’s Weeks 13-14 on their way to finishing 13-3.

Young said, we are believing in each other. Everybody is excited and has confidence in each other. Right now it’s tremendous. It feels really good coming over to our sideline and hearing the defense cheering you on or vice versa. Right now everyone’s together. I wanted to get out there to show everyone what has been going on for me, to show what I have been doing all this time behind the scenes.

During the final 6:24 of the game, Smith had two interceptions. In all he had three interceptions, got sacked four times and had two fumbles. It wasn’t the type of day he had been hoping for in his first start at home in over two years. On October 25 versus the Texans, coach Mike Singletary brought in Smith and benched Shaun Hill. Smith has been the 49ers starting quarterback since then.

The Titans scored 24 points off of turnovers by the 49ers.

Following the score by Johnson, Chris Hope picked of a Smith pass on the ensuing series of the 49ers, setting up a field goal of 28 yards by Rob Bironas. Cortland Finnegan then had an interception return of 39 yards to score a touchdown, sealing the victory for the Titans.

The 49ers (3-5) have lost four games in a row after starting the season 3-1. San Francisco won’t have much time to recover with Chicago coming to visit for a game on Thursday night.

Mike Singletary, 49ers coach said, it’s very frustrating for us to be here at this point. However we still have eight games to play. We need to make sure that get out there and play an entire football game and not kill ourselves during the process.

Johnson and Young smiled on the sideline while standing together as they waited for the game to end.

After the touchdown of Johnson’s was reversed by the officials, Young connected with Justin Gage, who made a leaping catch in between his two defenders, on a pass of 33 yards to get the Titans into the red zone. On the big plays Tennessee just kept converting.

Johnson had 135 yards rushing on 25 carries, his career high. Fifty three of his yards came after his run for a touchdown was nullified. Young, who last week got his starting quarterback job back, went 12 for 19 for a total of 172 yards passing. He also had a touchdown run of 7 yards. Through eight games, Johnson has rushed for 959 yards.

Johnson said, right now we are confident. We are feeling like a new team. We have a new schedule to play.

Vernon Davis caught 10 passes for 102 yards for the 49ers in a game that was a matchup between two quarterbacks who have improved their play of late as they attempt to rebuild their careers. For Smith, the 2005 No. 2 pick overall in the draft, this game was a step backwards. During the final moments of the game the fans who bothered to stay until the end booed Smith.

Smith said, I think it’s too early to know whether this is a regression or not.

For the 49ers Jason Hill had touchdown catches of 3 and 12 yards. San Francisco needs to turn things around quickly in order to have a shot at making the playoffs or snap their streak of having six losing seasons in a row, the worst in franchise history.

Frank Gore had only 83 yards rushing in 15 carries. He did score on a touchdown run of 3 yards and caught seven passes for a total of 75 yards receiving.

During the first quarter, Young connected on a nice completion of 49 yards to Gage, who caught four passes in the game.

The 16th consecutive regular season win for the Colts will fit into Indianapolis’ record book rather neatly.

The game tapes for this week’s game will show just how imperfect the Colts really are.

On Sunday, with Peyton Manning being completely out of sync as well as the offense struggling to make touchdowns, Indianapolis turned to Joseph Addai, a former quarterback, to get a touchdown pass of 22 yards to give the Colts an 18-14 win over the 49ers and keep their perfect regular season record going.

Reggie Wayne, Colts receiver said, we need these types of games if we are going to make it to our ultimate goal of the Super Bowl. We need the close game. We need to fight though some adversity and keep pushing forward. Today we did that. It was a real grinder out there, but we found a way to get a win.

In spite of all the Colts accolades, there’s still a lot of work that needs to done, clearly, after their sluggish offensive performance on Sunday.

Jim Caldwell, with the Colts win, became the latest rookie head coach to get wins in all seven of his first games in the NFL since the 1970 merger. Indianapolis extended their franchise record by becoming just the eighth team ever in the history of the NFL to win 16 games in a row. Once again, the Colts are the AFC’s last undefeated team. It’s the fourth time that has happened in the last five years.

However, it wasn’t a typical Indy day.

Although Manning went 31 for 48 for a total of 347 yards passing, he missed on his passes short, wide, and high, failing to come close to his remarkable efficiency that he had during the first six games for the Colts. Indy’s three time MVP failed to get a touchdown pass as well. The last time that happened was November 30, 2008. Instead it was Addai, the All American high school quarterback, who got that job done.

It was the first touchdown pass for Addai as a professional as well as the first by an Indianapolis non-quarterback player since 2001 when Ken Dilger had one. It was a perfect result. Wayne lunged toward the line, getting both of his feet on the ground and giving the Colts their first lead in the game early fourth quarter.

Wayne caught 12 passes, his career high, for a total of 147 yards receiving.

Addai said, all I was trying to do was get the football out there. During practice I just sort of spot up, read my keys, kind of look. I really don’t have keys to read. I kind of just sit back like I was a real quarterback.

It was yet another very frustrating day for the 49ers (3-4).

San Francisco has lost three games in a row despite the solid performance of Alex Smith. It was the first start for Smith in almost two years. He went 19 for 32 for a total of 198 yards passing and had one interception and one touchdown. Smith got sacked four times playing behind the 49ers makeshift offensive line. Joe Staley, left tackle, got injured during the game’s first play to lend another potentially devastating blow to San Francisco’s line. Tony Pashos, right tackle, is already out for the remainder of the season.

Despite that, the steadiness of Smith, a long run by Frank Gore, and the continued contributions of Michael Crabtree and Vernon Davis, San Francisco controlled the game for majority of the first three quarters.

Their performance was almost good enough.

Mike Singletary, 49ers coach said, dropping a couple balls can make the difference during games like this. Any missed chances in games like this will really bite you at the end. All I can say right now is we came in to win this football game.

The defense of the Colts had to keep Indianapolis in the game. They did allow Gore to break free up the middle, elude two tackle and race 64 yards to score a touchdown on the second series for the 49ers. Indianapolis hadn’t allowed a touchdown before that since the 4th week of the season. Gore rushed for 91 yards in 13 carries and caught five passes for 43 yards receiving.

In the meantime, Manning had to settle for field goals.

Early second quarter, when Indianapolis closed the gap to 7-6, the 49ers answered back with a touchdown pass of 8 yards from Smith to Davis with just 33 seconds remaining first half.

There were two problems with that. Manning still had enough time to drive down field and the celebration by Davis result in a penalty of 15 yards, giving Indianapolis extra yards down field.

Indianapolis capitalized. Manning only need three plays in order to set up a field goal of 31 yards by Stover. That made the halftime score 14-9. Manning then opened up the second half by leading Indianapolis 52 yards. Stover kicked his fourth field goal.

The score stayed that way until Indianapolis pulled the halfback option out.

Manning said, I didn’t think we were as sharp as usual. We definitely have areas we need to improve on.

Yes the Colts do, even with winning 16 games in a row.