Singletary met with team officials last week to discuss his future, with the "interim" tag expected to be dropped and Singletary signed to a multi-year deal shortly after the season.

Asked on Friday if Martz will be fired, Singletary said he addressed the rumor with the team but would not discuss it further.

"Because of all of the controversy about it and all of the distractions that it's had on our team already, I just came in this morning and I got our team together first thing this morning and just told them 'You know what guys? All the speculation, all of the talk, whatever, we want to focus on Washington and all of the other things we'll talk about and think about later.'" Singletary said. "But I really don't want to comment on that right now. I just really want to focus on Washington and everything else will take care of itself. It will happen soon enough."

Singletary said he and Martz had talked about it "a little bit."

He also kept the focus on Sunday's game when asked about his own situation.

"You know what? Here we go. I'm going to stay on Washington," Singletary said. "I'm really going to stay on Washington. We've had too much of a distraction from it already this week really trying to keep the guys focused on...you had Christmas, you had Christmas Eve, you had shopping, you had all of the other things. I want to get these guys back and have them totally focused on Washington, and we need to go forward with that."

--Quarterback Shaun Hill is coming off a performance in which he played as poorly throughout as any game of his nine-start career with the San Francisco 49ers.

But, conversely, he never looked better, either.

Hill fully expects to settle down and avoid the mind-numbing mistakes he made a week earlier. The 49ers conclude their season on Sunday against the Washington Redskins at Candlestick Park.

Hill has his last chance to prove himself worthy of the 49ers' starting job heading into the offseason. He might have earned it with his late-game heroics against the St. Louis Rams. Hill threw two touchdown passes after he convinced coach Mike Singletary to refrain from benching him.

Singletary decided to bench Hill after his third interception of the game. But Singletary quickly changed his mind after Hill's actions on the sideline convinced him to have patience.

"Body language tells you a lot," Singletary said. "It really doesn't matter what a guy says. I mean, everything is in a guy's eyes. Everything is in his posture when he comes off the sidelines and when you look at a player, whether it's a corner that just got beat for a touchdown, he comes off and he's grabbing his hamstring, well is his hamstring hurt or is his heart hurt? Is his confidence hurt?

"So when I looked at him and he said what he said, everything was there that said, 'I really can get this done. You can trust me to go back out there and get this done.' And that is what the body language said and I said, 'You know what, OK, fine, you got it,' and I told Coach (Mike) Martz he's going back in and let's go with it."

The 49ers will look to end the season on a two-game win streak. The 49ers have won three of their past four games and four of six after Singletary took over for fired Mike Nolan.

And as the 49ers get ready to finish the season, a lot of attention is already being paid to next season.

Who is going to be the head coach?

Who is going to be the offensive coordinator?

And, who is going to be the quarterback?

Hill made taken advantage of his opportunities after sitting five full NFL seasons before getting into three games with the 49ers at the end of last season.

After Hill won both of his starts last season, the 49ers signed him to a three-year, $6 million contract extension.

Hill entered a quarterback competition against Alex Smith, as they shared the snaps during the offseason program.

But Hill became the first player eliminated from the competition when offensive coordinator Mike Martz made the move to inject J.T. O'Sullivan into the competition.

Hill began this season as the 49ers' No. 3 quarterback but moved up a spot when Alex Smith was lost for the season with a fracture of his throwing shoulder.

One of Singletary's first moves as head coach was to promote Hill to the starting lineup after J.T. O'Sullivan's struggles continued with an interception returned for a touchdown in an October loss to the Seattle Seahawks.

Hill showed a lot of mettle last week in taking control when the 49ers looked hopeless for much of the game against the lowly Rams. Hill improved his career record as a starter to 6-3. In the other 22 games the past two seasons in which Hill did not start, the 49ers' record is 5-17.

Hill seems to have the intangibles and mindset to overcome some of his perceived physical shortcomings, such as arm strength.

"Any time you allow a football player, a guy who plays football as hard as Shaun does, to stay in a football game, things can turn around," receiver Isaac Bruce said. "We're fortunate to have Shaun come back and bounce back the way he did."

Said linebacker Takeo Spikes, "We rally behind that type of guy. I don't care if the guy threw four picks, everybody was still rallying around him because at the end of the day he gives us a good chance to win."

SERIES HISTORY: 24th regular-season meeting. The 49ers lead the series 13-9-1. The teams met in four playoff games. The 49ers won 24-20 in 1971, 28-10 in 1990 and 20-13 in 1992. The Redskins defeated the 49ers in the 1983 playoffs 24-21.