Ultimate underdog

Niners' Garcia continues to overcome doubters

OAKLAND -- Initially, the projection was a poor man's Ty Detmer. With any luck, maybe a late bloomer like Steve Bono. But never, ever, in their wildest quarterback-making fantasies did the San Francisco 49ers see today's incarnation of Jeff Garcia coming. To suggest otherwise is pure folly.

Two Pro Bowls in two years later, it's getting harder and harder to remember that about the erstwhile CFL standout. But this side of Kurt Warner, who in the NFL of late has climbed as high despite expectations that started as ridiculously low?

"I was the director of player personnel, and [then general manager] Bill Walsh and I sat in the room and watched film of him,'' 49ers general manager Terry Donahue said this week. "And the evaluation was this guy can be a backup. He can replace Detmer, who we lost. And even though we wished we still had Detmer behind Steve Young, this guy will be OK and we'll go with him.

"That's the reality. That's what happened. Then all of a sudden, Jeff got in here, got hold of the offense and away we went. The rest is history. If Jeff had not emerged as the kind of player he's emerged as, who knows where we'd be? Who knows?''

Pinpoint all the reasons you want in the process of diagraming how the 49ers climbed out of their two-year, 10-22 funk to go 12-4 last season and return the franchise to playoff form. You can laud the job that the organization did in taking its bitter salary cap medicine in 1999-2000. You can tick off the bountiful supply of defensive talent that came via San Francisco's 2000-01 drafts. And don't leave out the importance of receiver Terrell Owens' emergence as one of the game's premier playmakers.

Valid, all valid. But if you don't start the story of San Francisco's resurgence with a nod toward the Garcia factor, you're missing the point that's as obvious as the one atop the city's famed TransAmerica building.

Some teams have managed greatness without a great quarterback (think Baltimore in 2000). But not in these parts. Not in San Francisco's version of the West Coast offensive system, which was mastered by guys named Montana and Young. If there's a legacy that they're proud of around here, it's that they get the quarterback thing right, and figure out the rest after that.

"Quarterbacking always is going to be the key,'' 49ers head coach Steve Mariucci said Thursday, two days before San Francisco's 17-10 exhibition loss Saturday night to cross-bay rival Oakland. "There's other ways to win games. With a great defense, or a great tailback, all of that. And those add up. But let's face it, football requires a quarterback who can win. And if you don't have that, you better have a lot of other pieces of the puzzle who are superior.''

Garcia had his problems Saturday against the Raiders, finishing 8 of 16 for 60 yards while being repeatedly knocked around by Oakland's defense in his just less than two quarters of work. The 49ers didn't score until Garcia's backup, Tim Rattay, entered the game with 1:30 remaining in the first half.

But those who have watched the 32-year-old Garcia this entire preseason say he has come into his own as both a player and a leader in the 49ers locker room. Starting his fourth NFL season, he is more vocal, quicker to interject himself into team-wide matters -- like when he castigated some 49ers reserves for letting Washington roll up both yards and points in the teams' preseason openers -- and more confident than ever of his on-field expertise.

"I've been around Young, Brett Favre, Mark Brunell, all those guys, and Jeff is experienced enough now and confident enough now to handle whatever we give him in terms of game plan and volume and all those sort of things,'' Mariucci said.

"He can make all the throws. He's a legitimate Pro Bowl quarterback, and he is undoubtedly our leader. He's not the new quarterback around here any more. He's our Pro Bowl quarterback that we're going to rely on. We're counting on him, and he's earned that.''

Garcia earned it by becoming the first 49ers quarterback to throw for 30-or-more touchdowns in consecutive seasons (31 in 2000, 32 in 2001), a feat that Montana and Young somehow never managed. And he earned by posting four, fourth-quarter comebacks last season, a speciality of 49ers quarterbacks. That he did it all despite playing through injuries to his ribs, knee and elbow -- never missing a game -- greatly heightened his standing among his teammates.

Looking even slighter at times than his 6-foot-1, 195-pound build, Garcia, the former San Jose State star who went undrafted in the NFL, amazingly already has played his way out from beneath the large shadows that Young and Montana cast in the 49ers organization.

"I really believe I'm ready to take it to the next level,'' Garcia said this week. "I'm ready to shoulder the load.I want to show that we're not a fluke. It's great to have been able to turn it around in basically two short years. Especially to be one of the guys who was doubted and knocked.

"So, yeah, there's a quiet sense of exuberance I feel. But I'm not finished. I know there's so much more for us to accomplish. So much more for me to accomplish.''

With his brand of elusive, on-the-run quarterbacking, Garcia represents the perfect marriage of style and system. It worked for him for five mostly successful seasons in the CFL -- where he was Grey Cup MVP for the 1998 league champion Calgary club -- and it has been pretty much the same story in San Francisco. But not even Walsh himself, who deserves more credit than anyone for identifying Garcia's talent, could have dreamed just how right the fit has been.

"As we look back at it, none of us would have anticipated that we would come back as fast as we did,'' Donahue said of the 49ers' return to prominence. "One of the primary reasons you can cite for that sudden rise really was the emergence of Jeff Garcia. I mean, if he doesn't play like he plays, we might be five years in the rebuilding.''

Placing even bigger expectations on Garcia and the 49ers this season might be testing the law of diminishing returns. After all, Warner and his Rams are in the 49ers' division, standing in the way of Garcia's ultimate vindication. But at what point is Garcia's rise no longer overachievement?

"As much as we know the expectations are out there for us, we need to exceed those,'' Garcia said. "We can't hold anything back. Obviously in this locker room, we're preparing ourselves to be the best team in the league. We want to be that team that's sitting in San Diego at the end of the season on the platform, holding up the trophy. We're doing the necessary things that we need to do to hopefully realize that dream.''

The first of which appears to have come way back in 1999, the day the 49ers signed Garcia.

Don Banks covers pro football for CNNSI.com.

 

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