Jack, because it's the playoffs, that's why Steve Young is saying these things.

I can relate, because during the regular season, after the QB switch, the team was already in such good position to enter the playoffs that I took an unusually detached attitude towards individual games, especially in December. But now, well, this is my team, it's win or go home, they MUST win, I'm in 100 percent and more, and nothing less than the absolute best the team can muster will do.

Young knows how the stakes ratchet up in the playoffs, better than most. He's seeing an inexperienced QB whose numbers have been trending downwards over the last month and he's worried about how he'll perform in this unknown territory.

Seems only natural to me. After all, I'd be worried to a degree if Smith were starting too. I never entirely retired the old "the wheels could come off at any time" mantra when watching Smith, no matter how close to perfect he came this season.

Oy. Lookit, if I could nail Honest Jim Harbaugh's foot to the floor and ask him one question before tomorrow's game it's this: If Colin Kaepernick struggles in the first half, say he turns the ball over two or three times and the team is down a couple of touchdowns, would you hesitate to insert Alex Smith?

The thing that saddens me most about the current state of the 49ers is that I already know how much trouble Harbaugh would have giving an affirmative answer to that question. Whereas if it were the other way round, I would bet my house he would switch to Kaepernick looking for a spark were Smith to struggle.

That's how effed up the 49ers are, no matter how good their chances of winning this year's Super Bowl are.

(And I believe I am a lot more sanguine about their chances this year than you are, Jack.)