Having Bronson and Winborn on the field completely changes the entire makeup of the D. Starting with Bronson-

Bronson make the secondary calls for the Niners. He assesses the offense as it approaches the line and any motion they use and changes coverages if necessary. This is the reason Tony Parrish is playing free safety right now- John Keith has simply been so busy the last 2 1/2 years getting healthy he doesn't have a good feel for the defense. Plus, he's not as good in coverage as Parrish. Same reason Peterson played SS at Dallas instead of FS. Further, Bronson is as good at playing "centerfield" as any other DB in the league. It's why he had 8 picks last year.

Winborn is even more important. He is normally the Niners coverage LB. When he is on the field, it allows Jimmy Jr. to make better use of Peterson's incredible athleticism and versatility. Peterson is by far the best blitzer on the team and is the biggest reason that Andre Carter started the season with oodles of sacks. It's absolutley no coincidence that the week they lost Winborn was the week the team went from 3+ sacks per game to having 3 in 7 games, including the one that Detmer gave them by falling down on the first play of the Eagles game. If Rasheed were healthy, he may be the same type of player, but even he is probably still too green to be trusted to do what Winborn does. Ulbrich and Smith are good against the run, but neither can cover a WR or even a decent TE. This is what is making the Niner D so one-dimensional, and we know what happens to one-dimensional teams in the NFL.

Let's play what-if for a minute. We'll say Smith went down instead of Winborn and that Parrish is out instead of Bronson.

The run D would not suffer a whit- Ulbrich is virtually the same plaer as Smith- a half-step slower maybe, but a sure tackler and smart player. No change up front with JP and Winborn at his side.

Losing Parrish's presence and experience would be significant, but Heard and Keith would not be a major dropoff. Keith may be even more physical, and Heard showed in his brief tenure as a starter that he knows how to play. But having Bronson back there would enable the team to use its best coverages, and his ability to play centerfield or cover 1-on-1 enables Mora to be much more aggressive in blitzing or using more zone packages. In short, we would be in line for a first-round bye instead of wondering whether we get New Orleans or Atlanta and hoping somebody else beats Green Bay so we don't have to go there. If Rumph (who has been much better this year than the media likes to tell you) can make the kind of adjustments that Plummer and Webster did in their second years, and we get maybe one more DL, this is a defense that can carry the team. I think that next year's team has every chance of going down as the greatest in team history, and one of the best ever.