"I am having the time of my life," Singletary said. "This is what I was born to do. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind."

--Quarterback Shaun Hill was making just his sixth career start, but he certainly knows how to manage a game.

On a third-and-12 situation with 2:26 remaining Sunday against the Buffalo Bills, Hill resisted his quarterback instincts to throw the ball away. Instead, he went down for a sack when he could not find anyone open down field. The Bills were out of timeouts, so the clock was able to run down to the two-minute warning before Andy Lee punted.

"I knew if I had an open receiver, I was going to take it for a first down," Hill said. "If it was gray at all, then definitely I was going to take the sack as opposed to throwing it away just to keep the clock running.

"That's an extra 20 seconds, which was a long time, so that was kind of the main thinking."

Hill said nobody on the 49ers' sideline reminded him to take the sack to keep the clock moving. Even though it was just his sixth NFL start, he knew what had to be done to manage the game.

"There are so many situations that come up in games and you have to rely on your preparation . . . so that your instincts are right in that situation. The instincts in a normal game situation would be totally different - you throw it away. But things change in different parts of the game."

--Singletary wears a large wooden cross during practices and games. He said of his religion, "If it were not for God, I would not be here."

Why does Singletary wear the cross in such a visible manner?

"I decided to wear the cross as a reminder of who I am and not lose my mind on the field and not become somebody else," he said. "I want to be consistent with who I am, so I'm very thankful for the cross."

--Safety Mark Roman has just one interception in 44 career games with the 49ers. He said he simply hasn't had any opportunities to get interceptions, other than a ball thrown by St. Louis quarterback Marc Bulger earlier this season that he got his hands on.

Roman knows all about Favre. They were teammates with the Green Bay Packers. So Roman said there is the potential for getting some chances to make plays when the Jets come to town with Favre as their quarterback.

"I can remember when we were playing in Green Bay, sometimes you'd be like, 'Man, I wish we were playing against Brett right now,' " Roman said. "Sometimes he has those kinds of games, but you can't go into Sunday wishing that Brett shows up because he can either be really good or he can throw you a few."

BY THE NUMBERS: 42.2 -- The percentage the 49ers' defense has allowed the opposition to score touchdowns from within the red zone. The 49ers rank fifth in the NFL in that statistic.

QUOTE TO NOTE: "I hate (the term) spoiler. What it says is that you're team is not going anywhere. I don't have anything against a team that I don't want to see them in the playoffs because of us. But whichever team we're playing, we want to win because we want to win." -- 49ers interim coach Mike Singletary.