Aubrayo Franklin News

It's known as four-minute offense. In the National Football League, it can separate the men from the boys.

I've been getting a lot of questions about Aubrayo Franklin, who becomes an unrestricted free agent after the season, so I thought I'd use the 49ers' "second bye" to update their free agency situation.

In this case, he's spot-on. "As far as the importance of the game, this game is just as important as the first game," the coach said.

He was an assistant with Tampa Bay when the Bucs played in Lambeau Field on Dec.

Five of them, in fact. Working on a short week, the 49ers' defensive coordinator had his players in position to make plays from start to finish and they responded by intercepting Jay Cutler five times, preserving an incalculably sloppy 10-6 victory over the Chicago Bears on Thursday night at Candlestick Park that snapped a four-game losing streak.

With their season potentially hanging in the balance, the San Francisco 49ers were finally able to come out on the right side of a close game in last Thursday's narrow victory over the Chicago Bears.

The 49ers did not send out an NFL-worthy offense on Thursday night. Any offense that gets five turnovers from its defense and scores only 10 points should be ashamed of itself.

Earlier in the season, defensive end Justin Smith said emphatically that teammate Aubrayo Franklin was the best nose tackle in the NFL.

San Francisco 49ers Tarell Brown, #25, runs back interception in the 2nd half against the Chicago Bears at Candlestick Park November 12.

The 49ers seem to have lost the spark quarterback Alex Smith provided in his first couple games after replacing Shaun Hill .

Aubrayo Franklin was in the middle of one of his least favorite activities - talking about himself - when teammate Jeff Ulbrich interrupted.

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CHI 2nd and 3 from 33 ... Forte gains two yards ... 3rd and 1: Forte squirts through for 1 yard ... 1st and 10 from 30: Pass to Olsen caught out of bounds ... 2nd and 10: Forte breals loose, gains 16 yards ... 1st and 10 from SF 14: Forte stopped for no gain ... 2nd and 10: Cutler to Bennett, mistackle by Spencer, gains nine ... 3rd and 1: Cutler ...

Mike Singletary's band of brothers is in trouble, and it knows it's in trouble. Sunday, you could see Singletary and the 49ers players start to sweat.

Posted by ESPN.com's Mike Sando The 49ers will probably need to start becoming more aggressive on offense at some point here against the Colts.

Takeo Spikes picked a good week to come up with a shoulder injury. Even healthy, the inside linebacker wouldn't figure to play much Sunday against Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts' pass-first offense.

Mike Singletary has named Alex Smith as the new starting quarterback and hopes that it will change things up for hte 49ers.

They've softened up quite a bit this season. As the featured receiver in coordinator Jimmy Raye 's offense, Davis is having a career year.

"We've been trading phone calls," Alex Smith said Thursday. "He called, twice. When you've torn ligaments in your shoulder, it takes time to heal.

It seems like every week there has been some underlying storyline to the Houston Texans upcoming game.A Last week was a battle between two teams with tendency to take things down to the last second.