Afterward, asked what he had found most challenging about his first extended NFL game time, he replied: the plays.

Not running them. Reciting them.

"Some of these plays are a little wordy," he said at the time. "Sometimes you're saying 25, 30 words. It's tough to say and remember."

A couple times he called them out so softly his teammates had to ask him to repeat himself. When he used his outdoor voice, Brohm tended to get light-headed. Can you imagine?

"Word from the San Francisco bench is that Jeff Brohm has left the game with hypoxia. His return is questionable."

We're going to go out on a limb and assume that your basic NFL playbook has not gotten any less verbose or complex in the dozen years since Brohm's one brief shining moment. One reason we're comfortable assuming that is because of the madness that occurred in Arizona on Monday night.

Perhaps you remember. Perhaps you've been medicating in an attempt to forget. In any event, with time winding down and his team trailing by five, 49ers quarterback Shaun Hill passed to receiver Jason Hill for a first down at the Arizona 1-yard line. Forty-five seconds remained in the game.

Tom Walsh advised by Jim Hostler would've known what to do next have Shaun Hill spike the ball to kill the clock, giving you 40 seconds and three downs in which to gain 1 yard and score the winning touchdown. Instead, synapses inside the head of offensive coordinator Mike Martz began misfiring.

So many pages in the playbook. So many options. Should Martz stick with the spike package? Should he rush the spread package on the field? The jumbo package? The extended-stay package? The grand touring package?

Martz called out coNFLicting orders, sending players scrambling on and off the field in confusion. Should he call empty-right-razor-88-dig-cut-tango-alpha-bazooka-joe-toss-power-trap? Or maybe it should be power-blast-action-naked-boot-waggle-wheel-1-Adam-12-reverse-cross-with-a-kolvoord-starburst.

Well, you know what happened. Twenty-five seconds were wasted as Martz's brained thrummed to the full range of possibilities at his disposal. Finally, Hill spiked the ball. The 49ers ran two ill-considered running plays and that was that.

Meanwhile, in Oakland, offensive coordinator Greg Knapp has had play-calling duties ripped from his grasp like a young boy being relieved of a steak knife and told, "Give me that before you hurt yourself."

Head coach Tom Cable is the new play-caller. But no matter who calls the plays, they look the same:

Justin Fargas running straight ahead into a wall of beef, or the quarterback (JaMarcus Russell in most cases) dropping back, searching frantically for receivers who may or may not be running the correct route, with the piercing cries of his offensive lineman ("Incoming!") ringing in his ears.

In fairness, this kind of paralysis by overanalysis can be seen all across the NFL every weekend. You know, the panicked check-down on third-and-seven that results in a 4-yard pass. The false starts. The delay of game penalties. The timeouts to avoid delay of game penalties. (The Raiders burned all three of their first-half timeouts in the first nine minutes of Sunday's game.)

It all begs the question: Who are these geniuses trying to confuse, other than themselves? They swap out groups of players between most plays. Each snap is preceded by motion, sometimes by motion on top of motion. They make playing offense look as if its the most complicated endeavor since sending man to the moon.

Martz is supposed to be one of the great offensive minds of our time. Yet after all his big and creative thinking Monday, the 49ers got stuffed on a running play to end the game. Seems Arizona knew what was coming because doh! San Francisco had two tight ends on the field.

Wonder what Jeff Brohm would say about that. Or if he could complete his thought before passing out.

Contact Gary Peterson at gpeterson@bayareanewsgroup.com