So too much pressure on the quarterback can be a bad thing.

‘‘Any team that just goes out there and blitzes away is going to get blown out,’’ San Francisco safety Donte Whitner said. ‘‘You can’t do that. You have to mix it up. Any quarterback that’s this good — that’s an A-plus at the helm — you have to mix some things. Everybody knows that you can’t go out there and do one thing. You have to do multiple things. With our personnel and our scheme, I believe that allows us to do it.’’

There’s no better test of that than the Patriots.

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