Green Bay Packers Need to Sign Jeff Garcia

The Green Bay Packers had two important steps take place this weekend that will enable my favourite quarterback to be in green and gold:

1. They dumped 2008 second round pick Brian Brohm, who showed little to make one believe he could play at the NFL level in two training camps and preseasons.
2. The Oakland Raiders showed their continued inability to make solid personnel decisions by cutting their second-best quarterback, Jeff Garcia.

Garcia is the quintessential bridesmaid. No one ever seems to want to marry themselves to him, even though all he ever does is win.

He took over in San Francisco during the 4-12 1999 season and played 13 games. In 2000, the Niners only went 6-10, but Garcia had a passer rating of 97.6, with more than 4000 yards, 31 TDs, and just 10 picks.

By 2001, Garcia led the team back to the playoffs and a 12-4 record with a 94.8 rating and 32 TDs to just 12 picks. The next season saw the 'Niners earn the biggest comeback win in NFC playoff history against the New York Giants.

Then Terrell Owens happened. He did so much to discredit the man who got him the ball that the team had to make a choice between the two players.

The choice they made in hindsight seems foolish, but at the time was logical—choose a playmaking receiver coming to his peak, or a 33-year old quarterback who was too small and didn't have a strong enough arm to even be drafted?

They chose the team-wrecker who had advocated for Tim Rattay over Garcia. In case you didn't know, here is a comparison of the two quarterbacks:

• Jeff Garcia: 124 games, 2264-3676 (61.6), 25537 yards, 161 TD, 99 int, 87.5 passer rating. After the Niners made their choice, Garcia played in 50 more games, completing 815 of 1316 (61.9  percent) for 9129 yards, with 48 TDs and 27 picks.
  
• Tim Rattay: 40 games, 432-734 (60.5), 4853 yards, 31 TD, 23 picks, and an 81.9 passer rating. After the Niners chose Rattay over Garcia, he played in just 21 games, completing 330 of 550 passes (60 percent) for 3748 yards, with 22 TDs and 21 picks.

Not much of a comparison. The Niners went 25-55 after Garcia left with no trips to the playoffs, while Garcia's new teams went 37-43 and won their divisions twice.

Of course, since that time we have seen what an extraordinary judge of quarterback talent TO is. And what a man of character, too! Here are some of his finger-pointing highlights:

1. He publicly called Garcia gay (how does that even matter?) before a matchup with his Browns the season after Garcia's departure.
   
2. Amongst a public feud lasting all off-season that brought to an end his time in Philadelphia and ended the team's playoff run, he said Donovan McNabb was not as good as Brett Favre. For the record, in that season McNabb played in only nine games, but had only four fewer touchdowns than Favre's full season and a whopping 20 fewer picks for a passer rating 14.1 points higher.
3. He said Tony Romo and Jason Witten secretly drew up plays in their hotel room to exclude him from the offense and complained about not getting the ball enough in a game in which passes went his way over 40 percent of the time.

But enough on the most paranoid, self-centered player in the history of the NFL...

After being let go in San Francisco, Garcia played two unsuccessful years in Cleveland and Detroit, and at 35, it appeared his career was winding down. Then he got new life in Philadelphia, taking over for an injured Donovan McNabb and leading the Eagles to a playoff win.

The next year, his playoff performance got him signed in Tampa Bay as their new leader. He took that team to the playoffs, where they lost in a close contest to the eventual Super Bowl-champion New York Giants.

The notoriously discontented and veteran quarterback-addicted Jon Gruden sought a new quarterback anyway, pursuing (in order of least to most ridiculous) Brett Favre, Jake Plummer, and Brian Griese in Garcia's two years there. Giving the job at one point to Griese ended up costing Gruden his job, as Garcia was unable to overcome the losses accrued under his lesser understudy's direction.

Yet in the offseason, teams needing a quarterback failed to make a play for the cagey veteran leader who has always put his own undersized body on the line to make a play. While everyone was seeking one-year wonder (with the second-most talented receiving corps to throw to) Matt Cassell, Jay Cutler (despite his failure to ever have a winning season), or annual coquette Favre, Garcia went almost unpursued.

Teams like Minnesota, Kansas City, Denver, Tampa Bay, Detroit, Tennessee, San Francisco, and the New York Jets all would have made a clear upgrade by signing him, but none did. Eventually, he signed to be a backup to a shaky JaMarcus Russell.

Now, he has been freed from Al Davis' insane asylum (one run by the chief inmate), and the Packers need a veteran backup quarterback. If Aaron Rodgers goes down, the Packers go from a projected 10-6 to 4-12.

Thus, there may be no other teams whose success rests more on the arm of their quarterback than the Packers and the Indianapolis Colts. Green Bay is the team that has the cap room to make this move, and it's an offense Garcia has run for almost his entire career.

Please, Ted Thompson, sign this man before someone in our way does.

I originally wrote this article for SportsScribes.net.