SANTA CLARA – On Sunday, Carlos Rogers will match up against the Patriots’ two best receivers – Wes Welker and Aaron Hernandez. Here’s what Rogers said about that Wednesday in the media tent.

Q: What makes Wes Welker so tough in the slot?

ROGERS: Number one, his quarterback. Tom makes this offense go. [Welker] runs a lot of routes, a lot of option routes. Those quick guys like that, when you’re facing those guys – especially with a good quarterback – it’s going to take a lot. Not just me sticking him. It’s going to take Dashon coming down inside, or some of the D-ends hitting those guys and giving them different looks.

ME: Aaron Hernandez is a slot receiver often, as well. How do you defend against the option routes he and Welker run?

ROGERS: Try your best to stay on them. You need help. Those guys are quick, they’re fast. When you’ve got a lot of option routes, whatever leverage you’re on, they’re going to run opposite, or they can fake that way and come back. It’s going to take a lot of pressure – Aldon on those guys getting to Brady, getting him off his spot, and not just sitting back there baking a cake and picking us apart.

ME: Do you expect to cover Hernandez some?

ROGERS: Yeah, I’ll be on the tight end. I’ll be on Welker a lot. It depends on how the game goes, and our plan. Coach does a good job of mixing it up. Sometimes we may just be in our base coverage. Linebackers are going to have to cover, too.

ME: Do you anticipate playing a little more dime against the Patriots than you have in the past?

ROGERS: It all depends. We’ve got linebackers who can cover tight ends, cover backs out the backfield. I can cover the slot and the tight end. It all depends.

Q: What’s it going to take to win?

ROGERS: We know that we’re going to have to step up and play, and play to the end. Brady’s going to make his plays. This offense is going to make it’s plays. We’re going to make our plays. We just want to make more than him at the end of the game. It’s going to take our offense moving the ball on them, running the ball, keeping Brady off the field. If they don’t score many points, or however it turns out, as long as we keep Brady on the sideline and not on the field, it’s going to help us out a lot.

The 49ers just announced they signed linebacker Eric Bakhtiari to a two-year contract.

The 27-year old from San Mateo will most likely take over Demarcus Dobbs’ role on the special teams units. Dobbs was placed on IR earlier this week.

Bakhtiari rejoins the 49ers for the third time this season. He appeared in three 49ers games earlier this year, and he spent training camp with the team before getting released on August 31st.

SANTA CLARA — Tarell Brown spoke at his locker Tuesday afternoon. Here’s what he said about the Patriots’ offense.

Q: What is going to be key for your defense against the Patriots?

BROWN: We all have to go out there and win out one-on-one battles. They have a lot of different weapons, a lot of guys that can make plays, but we’re really fighting against Tom Brady. He has the keys to the car and we definitely have to stop him.

Q: When did you start watching film on the Patriots?

BROWN: Last night. I watched a little bit of the game. Once it got out of hand I turned it off. Then I started watching some film.

Q: Is this challenge a good measuring stick for you as a defensive back?

BROWN: Yeah, it’s a measuring stick for all of us. I think we’ll all be tested and challenged throughout the game, and that’s the good thing about it.

ME: Wes Welker and Aaron Hernandez run option routes depending on man or zone coverage. How do you match up with that?

BROWN: Play your leverage. You’ve just got to make plays. I think at the end of the day, they do a lot of reads on and off the field. We have to do the same thing – play with what you see and play fast.

ME: Are you anticipating playing in the slot and covering Welker?

BROWN: I probably will, or Carlos will be inside and I’ll be outside against Hernandez.

Q: Are you surprised they were able to put up so many points on Houston’s defense?

BROWN: No. They’re an explosive offense. Anytime you’re going into their stadium – they’re 20-0 in December. That’s something you look at, you have that in the back of the mind, but at the end of the day it’s any given Sunday. We’ll go out there and play football and bring the 49er thing with us.

Q: Do you enjoy coming in as the underdog?

BROWN: Yeah, we enjoy being the underdog. Anytime you play football, you always have a chip on your shoulder, you always have something to prove every week. This week we have to go out there and win a big game. It’s important for us.

Q: You haven’t seen a lot of Tom Brady in person, have you?

BROWN: No, I haven’t seen him much, but he’s a smart quarterback. He can make all the throws. He’s an elite quarterback in general. Period. One of the best. Any time you’re playing one of the best. You have to be on your A game.

Q: You guys sure look like you love these primetime games.

BROWN: Big time players show out in big time games. I think we’re used to the pressure. Us as a team, we’ll be ready, we’ll prepare, we’ll put our best foot forward and go out there and plan on getting a win.

ME: The defense has given up a lot of catches to slot receivers this season, like Danny Amendola and Chris Givens.  Do expect the Patriots to attack you in that way with Welker?

BROWN: Yeah, I think so. I think they’re just going to throw the ball around in general. Anytime you have a front like we have that can stop the run, they’re going to throw the ball 40 or 50 times a game. We’re giving up a few catches here and there, but we’re not giving up many yards and we’re not letting guys into the end zone, so that’s the most important thing.

ME: How do you stop their offense?

BROWN: Stop Tom Brady and stop Wes Welker and the guys that make plays after the catch. They get so many yards after the catch, it’s amazing. For us, we have to be sure tacklers this week. We need to focus, break down, and more than one guy needs to get there and swarm the football.

SAN FRANCISCO — Donte Whitner spoke at the podium after the 49ers beat the Dolphins on Sunday. Here’s what Whitner said.

Q: Can you talk about your body slam of Reggie Bush?

WHITNER: We just want to be physical any way we can. When you’re physical as a defense, it gives the offense something else to think about – not just your scheme, not just your pass rushers, but they have to think about protecting themselves when they’re around the football, and that’s how we play the game.

Q: Can you talk about Culliver?

WHITNER: Culliver is getting better each and every week. He’s playing like a top corner in the National Football League. He’s a guy – six-foot-plus. Almost 200 pounds. Wants to be physical. Really starting to study and become a student of the game. He’s just going to get better each and every week.

Q: How excited are you about the challenge you face next week against Tom Brady and the Patriots?

WHITNER: We’re going to be able to see where we are as a defense. We understand who’s going to have to win that football game. It’s going to be the defense. We understand their offense is going to try to control the football, get some big plays and put points on the board. We can’t allow that. So we’ll be ready.

Q: Tannehill was playing well in the first half, but he struggled in the second half. What happened?

WHITNER: We got a little lead, and they started to have to run routes longer than 10 yards. If you look at their offense, they’re really three steps, get the football out, don’t make him read too much. They don’t want him making mistakes. In the second half we got up two touchdowns and they had to throw the ball a little longer, go to five, seven step drops, try to get the football down field. Our rush was able to take over.

SANTA CLARA — Greg Roman spoke in the 49ers media tent Thursday afternoon. Here is what he said about his play calling against the Rams on Sunday, courtesy of the 49ers.

After the game and Monday and yesterday, head coach Jim Harbaugh talked a lot about the playcalls toward the end. How much second guessing do you do of yourself for those calls, the pitch in particular and just in the way that was handled before the Akers field goal at the end of regulation?

“You go back and you look at every call and you judge your intent relative to who you’re asking to do what. You assess that decision and one thing is, when plays work, you generally say that was a good decision. When they’re not executed or they don’t work for whatever reason, hey maybe we should have done something else. In that case, there was too many moving parts for that situation, certainly when it was called the result was not what we expected. It’s just something you measure, you try to learn from and you move on, if it doesn’t work.”

Looking back on it, the pitch, what are your thoughts on that particular play call and the risk-reward at that point in the game?

“I’m not going to get into the X’s and O’s aspects of it, I’ll just say the result was not the intent of the play call. I always look back and say, did it work or didn’t it work? Why, why not? And then move on from there.”

How do you assess your overall play calling against the Rams?

“If we win the game, I generally think it’s good. If we don’t, it’s got to be better. That’s just how I look at it.”

How have the penalties complicated the play calling?

“It’s not about play calling. It’s about execution, ultimately, on the field. That’s something that we’ve got to get a lasso around real quick. 49er football is smart, tough, opportunistic football and penalties certainly don’t fit into that equation. We just had too many of them, some of them we personally didn’t agree with and are just looking for some explanation on and hopefully we can learn from that and move on.”

I’m sure you want another pitch question. Since you’ve been here, in part because the way that play turned out, I don’t think that any single play call has gotten so much scrutiny, criticism and what not. Do you look at that as just part of the hazards of your job?

“Yeah, I mean any play you call, bad things can happen. And good things can happen, great things can happen. You see the gamut of them as you do what we do. We take a lot of pride in putting our players in a position to succeed and when they don’t work out, for whatever reason, criticism comes with it. We love our fans, want to give them wins and one of the reasons why the NFL is so popular is because everybody’s got an opinion, everybody’s got passion for it and it’s one of the great reasons you’re part of the NFL.”

The next day in Washington, the Redskins used the option quite a bit against the Giants on national television, very effectively. Do you see that being part of the future of the NFL, sort of this ability to do lots of things, including the option?

“I do. Felt that way for a while and I do think it does have a role relative to who you’re playing with. I can remember Pittsburgh ran an option play against the Packers in the Super Bowl a couple years ago. It’s in a lot of peoples play books. Some people feature it more than others, but those kinds of plays put a lot of pressure on a defense. Again, it all comes down to execution.”

SANTA CLARA — Vic Fangio spoke in the 49ers media tent Thursday afternoon. Here is what he said, courtesy of the 49ers.

What kind of problems do the Dolphins present?

“Well, they’ve got a talented young quarterback who’s a good athlete, runs well. He’s a scrambler, got a strong arm. I think he’s gaining more and more confidence with every game that he’s played. I think they’re a much better team now than they were earlier in the season. They’re doing a good job of running the ball. [RB Reggie] Bush is having a good season. They’ve got two good tight ends, [WR Davone] Bess and [WR Brian] Hartline are good receivers. Pretty good team right now.”

The criticism on Bush coming into the league a few years ago is that, they were saying, the wide open spaces that he had college. Has he learned how to play in smaller spaces?

“I think so. I think he’s improved in that area. He’s still a guy that’s always dangerous to bounce it outside and look to come out of the middle and get out on your edges if it looks a little cloudy. But I think he’s done a better job of plowing things up in there, overall, than he was early in his career. But he’s still a threat to get outside your defense and have one of those runs where he reverses field and looks like sandlot ball there. You’ve got to be ready.”

LB Aldon Smith has said that he would like to be recognized, coming into the season, for what he’s done, but also that’s he’s not just trying to just get sacks. Do you like his approach coming in, in terms of, let’s not talk about the single season mark until the appropriate time?

“I think that’s the right approach in all of the things in the NFL. Every week’s a new week. You take one game at a time. You take one play at a time, one series at a time. Play your best. Be focused on your job. Know your techniques and assignments and then let the results show what they do. I think if you get wrapped up into something that’s on the periphery, that sometimes you don’t have control over, it could be a distraction. I think he’s handled it pretty good so far.”

What is the ballpark estimate how many different ways you line Aldon up this season compared to last season, just in passing situation? How many different ways do you line him up this year?

“Well not a whole lot more than what we did last year other than he’s playing in the base and he’s our right outside linebacker. We do move him around in the sub-package some. He’s generally going to be on the right side, but he is on the left side a fair amount, anywhere between five and 15 times a game in our sub stuff and occasionally, on rare occasions, we will put him inside. But we’ve been moving him around, but not a lot.”

How difficult will that be for Dolphins T Jonathan Martin dealing with both Aldon Smith and DT Justin Smith? He has so little experience in the NFL at the left tackle spot.

“Well, every week in the NFL is a tough assignment no matter who you’re going against. Every team’s got good players. Jonathan’s a good player. They thought high enough of him to draft him very high and he’s been a starter from day one. And he’s done a nice job for them this year. So, I’m sure he’s looking at it like he does every week in the NFL. He’s got tough players to go against.”

More so, just making the switch from right to left, how difficult is that for a guy?

“He played left his whole time at Stanford, I believe. I was only there the one year, but I believe he played left. So, he’ll be much more prepared for it this week than he was last week because he’ll have a full week of practice under his belt at left, where I’m sure prior to that, he just got a handful of snaps, getting ready when he was the right tackle.”

Do you have a sense of who they’re going to put in at right tackle?

“I think they’ll play the game the way they finished it last week. 75 [G Nate Garner] moves over to right tackle and 71 [Martin] becomes the left tackle.”

People describe Aldon and Justin as guys who sniff out the quarterback. They have a knack for that. How does that come about and how would you describe what those guys have?

“Well, I think there’s, some of it’s instincts. Some guys just have a good feel. Some guys can get close but not finish. Those guys can get close and finish. It takes a special skill set. You’ve got to have something special, one way or another, either one thing or two things. In Aldon’s case, he’s got length. He’s got slipperiness. He’s got some strength. In Justin’s case, he’s got strength. He’s got great awareness of where the quarterback is going to be. He’s got great awareness of how a guy’s pass blocking him. So, it’s a little bit of everything all wrapped up in one.”

One of the themes that has been going on throughout the season is the continuity of the defense. You’ve had basically the same starting secondary over the last year-and-a-half. How has that helped shape the defense? Is that in jeopardy this week with CB Tarell Brown injury?

“Well, it could be in jeopardy with his injury, but, we’ll just have to deal with that if that’s the case. [CB Chris] Culliver will come in there. [CB] Perrish Cox can come in there. [CB Tramaine] Brock can come in there. We’ll be fine without him. But back to your original point, yeah, it does help to have continuity. We’ve talked about that before, if for no other reason they’ve all played in the same system, for now, 30 games and practiced for 30 games, two training camps in the same system playing alongside each other, things become a little bit better. Again, it’s the communication, both the spoken word and the unspoken word, because sometimes you can’t always speak out there.”

How much have those guys, and what the secondary’s been able to do, has helped a guy like Aldon do what he’s done statistically?

“Well, they go hand-in-hand. You can’t play good pass defense without a good pass rush and you can’t get a lot of production in pass rush if guys are coming open very early. So, it goes hand-in-hand.”

Is that kind of the hallmark of the secondary, that guy’s haven’t been able to come open early?

“Well, we’ve been tight. We try to get tight on our people. We have good understanding of our zones and our mans and how they play and we try not to let anybody be running free. Very seldom do you see us, when you’ve watched us since we’ve been here, seeing guys like, ‘Well what happened there?’ They beat us, they complete ball. But we’ve got somebody there.”

How much better are Tarell and Culliver from a year ago?

“They’re better. In Chris’s case, just becoming a second year player, last year being a rookie, he’s made great strides. He’s learned the game better, learned the system better. And, I think in T-Brown’s case, it’s a combination. He was in the league for a few years before we got here, didn’t play much. Now he’s gotten an opportunity to play 30 straight games, get all that practice time in there and he’s been able to develop his skills, get some confidence and play within our scheme.”

S Dashon Goldson put the hit on QB Sam Bradford and got flagged for it, obviously a key moment. It was close. What were your thoughts on that and what do you tell a guy like that?

“If the quarterback starts to slide, you’ve got to get off of him. You can’t go down on him.”

What have you seen from Dolphins WR Brian Hartline and why do think he’s been under the radar?

“Yeah, I don’t know why he’s under the radar. He’s been impressive watching tape on him this week. He’s their leading receiver. Obviously the quarterback has a comfort level with him too. He likes to throw to him. He’s deceivingly fast and quick and he’s got good hands, and a good route runner. This guy’s a good player.”

How do you reconcile Dashon’s aggressiveness? It seems like a lot of his productivity is based on that. He’s also had a number of big penalties this year? As a coach, do you kind of pull the reins back on that?

“No, you don’t pull the reins back. You explain to him why the penalty was called and why he can’t do what he did in each and every situation. And I think he’s smart enough and intelligent enough and’s got good football awareness that he knows the difference and he just has to always remind himself.”

Not to get into an offensive or defensive division, but obviously you guys didn’t allow a touchdown last week and you lose. Is there frustration in that situation among your guys?

“Well, I think the frustration is throughout the whole team. We lost the game. We played well enough on defense last week to put us in position to win the game. We didn’t play well enough on defense to win the game. We had our chances there in the end to do things to win the game for us. We didn’t quite get them done.”

Jeff Garcia spoke on 95.7 The Game Monday afternoon. Here’s what he said about Colin Kaepernick’s performance against the Rams, and Alex Smith’s recent benching.

Q: How do you evaluate Colin Kaepernick’s against the Rams?

GARCIA: “I don’t think that he played a bad football game, I just think there were two unfortunate mistakes that, obviously, were instant points for the Rams. Anytime you do that, especially on the road in a tough environment, those things are tough to overcome. But they still had a chance to win the football game. He did make plays through the game. He made an outstanding run.

“I think one of the things that maybe we didn’t see as much yesterday that we’ve seen throughout the season was the involvement of the tight ends. The tight ends really didn’t have an impact in the game – only a few catches between them.

“The running game with Gore wasn’t as strong as it’s been in the past, but hey, it was a tough football game. The Rams are not a weak team.

“The unfortunate thing is David Akers, who’s been such a great kicker throughout his career, has missed two game-winning field goals in each of those games. We could be talking about a different outcome right now.”

Q: Jerry Rice gave Jim Harbaugh a ‘D’ for his handling of the quarterback situation. I know you’ve been involved in those QB situations from every angle. If you’d give Harbaugh a letter grade for how’s he handled this, what grade would you give him?

GARCIA: (Laughs). “I’m not going to give him a grade. Most coaches would have put Alex Smith back in as the starting quarterback as soon as he got over his concussion symptoms. He would have been put back in the starting position because he’s earned it. He’s done the necessary things from a consistency standpoint to be that guy, especially from the outside looking in.

“But we don’t know the details of what goes on inside. We don’t know who is the stronger leader for the team, who does Harbaugh really favor as the guy to take them on the Super Bowl run.

“That’s the factor here – who’s going to be your guy to help you win a Super Bowl. Can Alex Smith help you win a Super Bowl, or does he believe Colin Kaepernick is the guy who can help win that Super Bowl. That’s the coach’s decision. That’s what he has to live with.”