Gilroy
– There’s a pattern emerging in Jeff Garcia’s travels around the
National Football League in search of a quarterbacking job.
A West Coast pattern.
Gilroy – There’s a pattern emerging in Jeff Garcia’s travels around the National Football League in search of a quarterbacking job.
A West Coast pattern.
That’s the West Coast offense, to be precise, and the Gilroy native is poking his head around various clubs that run it – regardless of whether or not those teams play within actual spitting distance of the Pacific Ocean.
Garcia, released recently by the Cleveland Browns, has already met with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the Detroit Lions and the Denver Broncos, with whom he paid a second visit yesterday, according to a source close to the quarterback.
Each of those teams is coached by a proponent of the short, high-percentage passing offense that Garcia thrived in during five seasons with the San Francisco 49ers. Bucs coach Jon Gruden has long been an admirer of the system perfected by former 49ers coach Bill Walsh. Broncos coach Mike Shanahan was an offensive coordinator with the Niners. And Lions coach Steve Mariucci actually coached Garcia during his best seasons.
The source confirmed that Garcia is looking for a better fit with his skills and that “there are a lot more opportunities in that regard than there were last year,” when the quarterback signed with Cleveland.
But will Garcia settle for being a backup? “It’s probably in the back of his mind” that he’d want to beat out the starter wherever he went, the source said.
