Apparently no one told Niners safety Ben Emanuel the plan. He wasn't supposed to intercept Jamie Martin's pass. He was supposed to dramatically just miss, then look over his shoulder and watch Kevin Curtis haul it in and scamper into the end zone past seven San Francisco defenders.

You see, the 49ers were supposed to throw these last two games so they could have their shot at Reggie Bush -- at least that's what my colleague Brad Botkin thinks they should be doing. But with plays like Emanuel's interception and Maurice Hicks' 73-yard TD run on the very first play from scrimmage, they are doing themselves no favors in the Bush sweepstakes.

Now even if they lose to the Texans on New Year's Day, the 49ers will need all kinds of help to “win” the top pick. With the Texans at 2-13 and the Niners, Packers, and Jets all at 3-12, there is a chance that all four teams will be 3-13 when dust settles. Then it would come down to strength -- or rather weakness -- of schedule, and as of this morning, the Texans have the weakest schedule, and the Niners sit in third. That could still change somewhat, but you'd need to be and MIT mathematics professor to figure it all out.

Seriously though, with all due respect to Mr. Botkin and all those talk-show pundits, the entire notion of throwing Sunday's game to secure the top pick is antithetical to the nature of sports.

As a lifelong Niner fan who grew up on Montana, Rice and Young, I know how badly some people would like to get Bush for Christmas. But the simple fact is this: As a matter of personal and professional integrity, no NFL player -- or any other athlete for that matter -- should ever throw a game. Not for money, not for the first pick in the draft, not for anything.

There's a reason why the 1919 Chicago White Sox were banned from baseball and will be forever known as the Black Sox. They are a black stain on baseball because they betrayed the values that make the game worth playing. Show me an athlete who doesn't give it everything he's got on every play and I'll show you Randy Moss. Is that what Niners fans want: to stoop to Moss' level?

It's really a moot point anyway. With the exception of yesterday's game, the 2005 49ers don't have to try to lose. They've shown this year that they're perfectly capable of losing to any given team on any given Sunday. Even the Texans beat Arizona. The only question left to ponder is how they will manage to lose to Houston. The Niners have found new and exciting ways to lose nearly every week. That's the only thing that makes the games worth watching. To think, if I'd missed the game against Chicago, I wouldn't have seen the Bears' Nathan Vasher break off the longest play of any kind in the history of the NFL, a 108-yard missed field goal return as time expired in the first half.

Besides, as head coach Mike Nolan hinted this week, don't assume San Francisco would automatically take him with the top pick. These Niners have proven that they are more than one player away from legitimacy, even if that one player is a once-in-a-decade prospect, as Bush has been labeled. He may have averaged 8.9 yards per carry this year, but anyone who believes he can duplicate that stat coming from behind the Niners' offensive line probably also thought that Nolan's preseason goal of winning the NFC West was reasonable.

What if, in trading away the rights to that pick, they could get two other three immediate starters -- say an offensive lineman and a pass rusher -- and still pick a wideout in the first half of the first round? And all that money they would have had to throw at Bush could be used to make some serious free agency moves. That seems like it would be a better Christmas present than just one guy, no matter how good he is against Pac-10 defenses.

So what do other Bay Area teams want to find under their trees this morning? Since Kerry Collins has worn out his welcome in Al Davis' palace, and Marques “one-and-done” Tuiasosopo obviously isn't the answer, their wish list should be filled with quarterbacks. Maybe Santa can also give Randy Moss some motivation to finish off a route or throw a block, you know, things that good teammates do.

All the Warriors want for Christmas is to get back home to Oakland. Friday night's 97-85 loss to the Pistons ended a dreadful 1-4 road trip during which Golden State's defense allowed 106.6 points per game and managed to beat only the lowly Raptors. It had to have been a sobering experience for a team that left home last week feeling pretty good about itself at 13-9.

I suppose if they wanted to get really greedy, they could ask Santa for some innards, because they've consistently failed at gut-check time late in games, even at home. With even a little bit of intestinal fortitude, they could easily have three to four more wins.

The Sharks already got the biggest Christmas present they could hope when they traded for genuine superstar Joe Thornton. That was like the high-definition TV dad was hiding and pulls out when all the other presents are opened.

And they needed him, too. On the day of the trade they were mired in a 10-game losing streak that After the trade, they ripped off six straight wins. But they still find themselves in the basement of the NHL's Pacific Division -- not where they expected to be at this point after going to the conference finals in 2004 and rolling through the preseason undefeated.

The Giants also got their big present early in starter Matt Morris. They were a little disappointed, however, that Santa had already given Esteban Loaiza to their hated little brothers across the bay in Oakland. Now they can only hope Santa will put a map to the fountain of youth in their stockings, because their outfielders could certainly use a drink. With the addition of Steve Finley this week -- good riddance Edgardo Alfonzo -- the Giants have three outfielders over 39 years old. Randy Winn, at 31, will look like a baby out in center.

The A's, above all, want Santa to give them a stadium where the concrete behemoth of Mount Davis doesn't serve as the batter's eye. This year, the third deck of McAfee Coliseum will actually be completely shut down, covered with tarps as if the A's were some third-tier semi-pro team. The A's new owner, Lew Wolff, has been negotiating with Oakland officials, but also has his eye on San Jose, possibly in conjunction with a new MLS expansion team after the departure of the Earthquakes to Houston. But he'll have to jump through hoops held by the voters of San Jose and the owners of the San Francisco Giants -- who own the territorial rights to San Jose -- to make that happen. And they shouldn't hold their breath on that. Peter Magowan and Co. have generally given the cold shoulder to anyone in yellow and green who even mentions San Jose and stadium in the same sentence. I don't even know if Santa is powerful enough to change that.