Ezra Shaw/Getty Images

Kyle Williams #10 of the San Francisco 49ers reacts after he fumbled the ball on a punt return which the New York Giants recovered in overtime during the NFC Championship Game at Candlestick Park on Jan. 22, 2012

I'll try not to dwell on Kyle Williams; it's still too raw. It was impossible to escape that now-cursed name on the way out of Candlestick Park on Sunday night. As the crowds squeezed out of the old stadium and shuffled wordlessly around the deep puddles in the parking lot, occasionally someone would smash a beer bottle or scream into the night: “Kyle Williams — I haaaaate you!”

Before we descended from the upper deck, my friend Ray, who saw nearly every home game this year, turned to me in his gold rain suit and said with a sad smile: “What an amazing season.”

That’s really what the 49ers left us when they lost 20-17 to the New York Giants: A completely unexpected drama that ended, incredibly, in overtime of the National Football Conference title game, three points shy of the Super Bowl.

“It’s Alex Smith time,” Ray had blurted late in the fourth quarter, trying to conjure up the quarterback’s magic from last weekend. 

The fact that there is an “Alex Smith time” — that people say that seriously and wear his jersey to the game, that he’s the last player introduced out of the tunnel, surrounded by 20-foot high flames and smoke — says it all about the Niners this year. Smith was the personification of everything that was recently wrong with the team. One of the indelible images of the last couple years was of him arguing with befuddled coach Mike Singletary on the sidelines. Another was Singletary banishing tight end Vernon Davis from the bench. 

On Sunday, Smith and Davis connected on two of the most beautiful touchdowns you’ll ever see. Like many things about the reality show that is the NFL, the majesty of the plays didn’t totally translate on television. Smith’s first pass to Davis, for 73 yards, seemed to unfold in slow motion up the right sideline; Smith saw him open long before he actually was, and the ball floated and floated through the gray mist before it landed in Davis’ soft hands.

After Davis’ epic performance against the Saints last week, you wondered how he possibly could have gotten behind the defense that easily. But he and Smith struck again in the second half, this time with the 49ers behind.

The Niners were simply amazing in defeat Sunday, especially the defense. The feeling inside the Stick every time Eli Manning took the field was one of utter dread. The wan Giants quarterback threw impossible flip passes with three defenders — nearly 1,000 pounds of collective anger — collapsing on top of him and tossed 30-yard threaders that arrived at their destination with zero margin for error. Every time the Niners offense gave the ball back to Manning, an anxious murmur rippled through the crowd.

And yet, in the end, it wasn’t Manning who beat the Niners.

In the overtime, the Giants had the ball, third and 3 near midfield. Another Manning completion might have put them within field-goal range. But then Justin Smith descended on Manning, who had no place to go, and drilled him for a 10-yard loss. Smith emerged from the sack, walked toward our sideline and threw up his hands. The stadium let loose a primal scream.

The next play, Williams fumbled the punt return. And that was it. 

There was something not quite right about the entire day. Unlike last weekend, when Candlestick was sun-kissed and remotely presentable, the ancient stadium looked gray and awful in the rain. Soot and mold coated the upper bowl for the big event. Traffic — vehicular, foot, bathroom, beer lines — was beyond belief and totally uncontrolled.

Minutes before kickoff, thousands were trying to jam into Gate D with nary a cop or a stadium employee in sight to provide crowd control. The rain started to come down in sheets and Niners fans screamed at other Niners fans trying to cut in line. People were dressed like it was Green Bay, and that made the security check even longer. The wait was interminable. It wasn’t that cold, but a woman in front of us wore a heavy coat with a fur-lined hood.

Ray, a former comedian, belted out a rendition of “Ring of Fur” — an ad hoc parody of the Johnny Cash song “Ring of Fire” — lightening the mood.

The NFL, meanwhile, must have seen all those Niners shirts and mistaken San Francisco for a red state. The pregame and half-time entertainment was all pop-country and stagy militarism and completely drained of any local flavor. Huey Lewis was long gone, and, also unlike last week, there were big clusters of Giants fans dressed in blue throughout the stadium.

There was an ominous feeling all day. And yet the Niners made it close — more than close.

Kyle Williams, you can't help writing it. That is the big story here. He seems like good guy, and his teammates rallied around him. But his critical mistakes will haunt him — and us — 20 years from now, just like Roger Craig’s fumble against the Giants in the 1990 NFC title game at the Stick. They’ll talk about how Ted Ginn Jr. couldn’t go and how his replacement seemed afraid to return a punt all day, opting for fair catches, at one point diving for one, until the worst possible moment.

Brian Murphy, the KNBR sports talk host, wrote in Sunday's San Francisco Chronicle that this game would be the fulfillment of a 49ers revenge fantasy dating back to that moment.

Instead, it’s a nightmare repeated. But this team, unlike that one, was not going for three straight Super Bowls. That was the end of an era, Joe Montana's last game as a starter. This is the beginning of one, led by a brilliant coach, a young, frightening defense and a quarterback whose own story is a redemption song.

It's Alex Smith time.