The prevent defense. It makes you want to kick a football right through the television set, doesn’t it?

NFL fans in the Bay Area have been re-educated on being burned by the prevent D during the first three weeks of the season. The Raiders fell into it in their opener and lost in the final moments to San Diego. The 49ers went to it last Sunday at Minnesota and Brett Favre led the Vikings to a late victory, using all but the final two seconds of the game.

For years, the prevent has irked observers who wonder why a team plays lights-out, aggressive defense for 57 minutes or so, then seems to stumble around in the dark by going conservative with the outcome on the line. It seems to happen once a week.

Yet even a coach such as Mike Singletary, who was among the most assertive of players, can become wary of attacking in the final minutes — even though his defense has been superb while not backing down all game.

“I don’t know. I think it’s a combination of things,” Singletary said of the Vikings’ winning drive, on which he insists the 49ers were not playing prevent. “I think sometimes when you get in a prevent defense, sometimes on the defensive side of the ball, you tend to be a little more cautious, maybe not as free-flowing. Maybe the quarterback has more time. There could be a number of reasons.

“I just think the most important thing is, you’ve got to get to the quarterback. When you don’t, they have a chance to make a play.”

True. And when you rush three men — the Niners at least didn’t go that conservative — or stick with four pass rushers who likely are exhausted by then, the quarterback is going to have plenty of time to find receivers. Favre certainly did.

And by backing off to avoid big plays deep, it allows offenses to methodically gain yards and first downs while eating up the clock. The result often is exactly what happened in the Niners’ and Raiders’ losses: final-second scores for the opponent, leaving no time for a riposte from San Francisco or Oakland.

Raiders coach Tom Cable admitted, sort of, that his team laid back too much against an often potent Chargers offense.

“It’s almost like we got into a prevent mode rather than just continuing to play defense,” Cable said.

Added star cornerback Nnamdi Asomugha, who made plays all over the field in the first 58 minutes, then was pretty much invisible on San Diego’s winning drive:

“For the majority of the game we were just playing tight out there. During a situation like that you don’t want to play tight on them because that’s when they’re going to do those crossing routes on you and pick you. So we tried to go into more of a zone effect and see if that would work.

“I think that’s what any team would do in that situation. For it not to work out, you obviously can’t beat yourself over the head. If we did it again, we’d probably be doing calls similar to what we did in that last two minutes.”

And they’d probably lose again, particularly if a quality quarterback such as Philip Rivers was running the opposing offense.

Turning tame seems a surefire recipe for defeat. Why not remain militant on defense, trying to force mistakes, rather than going into a shell? If the offense hits on a big play – something both the Vikings and Chargers didn’t do much of in those games – there’s still time remaining to answer it. The cautious route should go against everything a defensive player is taught.

“But we don’t ever tell our guys, ‘Sit back and let them catch it and just play soft,’ ” Seahawks coach Jim Mora said. “We play safe, and we play smart. Keep the ball in front of you. Tackle them in bounds. Make them use timeouts and use the clock.

“So there’s a place for that attitude, and I know that it’s sometimes frustrating for fans, and it’s frustrating for coaches because you’ve done a lot of good work during the game and held them to minimal yards, and then all of sudden they’re getting chunks. But if you win the game, that’s ultimately the goal.”

Thankfully, there are teams who don’t take the foot off the accelerator late in tight games. The Ravens and Jets come to mind, with the common denominator being Rex Ryan.

When Ryan was coordinating the Ravens’ staunch D, he didn’t change his approach deep in the fourth quarter. The Ravens attacked.

In the last two of the Jets’ three wins, Ryan showed that as a head coach, he still has the same mindset.

“You try to put pressure on the entire offense,” Ryan explained. “Not just the quarterback, but the offensive line, the receivers, the backs, and they say it all the time. But they have to work. Mentally, if you can get somebody, just one guy, to be hesitant, then that’s an advantage to the defense. So, we always want to be on the attack mode.

“I don’t even care if it’s a three-man rush or an all-out blitz. We’re always trying to be coming forward, to be playing off the balls of our feet, not our heels.”

Or, as outstanding cornerback Darrelle Revis puts it:

“No, no prevent. We don’t even have that in our playbook. We’re just very aggressive.”

How refreshing.

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