Why did we release Jeff Garcia again?

I know it was for cap reasons, but wasn't he willing to take a pay cut at the time?

The reason I bring it up is here we are 6 years later and we never replaced him! Think of how much different this entire franchise would be if we had a competent QB the entire time. We would have been in the playoffs in 06 and last year, Smith would have been watching and learning from the bench for the last 3 years and would maybe be ready to take over as full time starter now, and with a few more playoff appearances maybe the stadium would have already broken ground.

I know hindsight is 20/20 and we were coming off a 7-9 year and in cap hell, but seeing him on Saturday really reminded me how brutal we have been for the last 6 years!

Because the year his contract was up, he was already making $10+ mil, making him the highest paid QB in football at the time. And yes, that includes Manning, Brady, McNabb, et al. Garcia didn't want to restructure his contract to something more cap friendly, so we had to let him walk.

But it should be said (and this will probably be ignored), that we did in fact TRY to keep him. And just because: The same can't be said for TO, who decided to void the final year (or was it two?) of his contract because he did not WANT to stay in San Francisco.

It kills me every time these two are brought up all we hear about is how we let them go when in reality, neither wanted to stay.

Originally posted by bigmur49:
I know it was for cap reasons, but wasn't he willing to take a pay cut at the time?

i don't think so. but if he was, he wasn't willing to take a cut big enough that the team needed. f*cking donnahue.

we thought Rattay was good. LOL

Originally posted by bigmur49:
I know it was for cap reasons, but wasn't he willing to take a pay cut at the time?

The reason I bring it up is here we are 6 years later and we never replaced him! Think of how much different this entire franchise would be if we had a competent QB the entire time. We would have been in the playoffs in 06 and last year, Smith would have been watching and learning from the bench for the last 3 years and would maybe be ready to take over as full time starter now, and with a few more playoff appearances maybe the stadium would have already broken ground.

I know hindsight is 20/20 and we were coming off a 7-9 year and in cap hell, but seeing him on Saturday really reminded me how brutal we have been for the last 6 years!

He would NOT take a cut and thats why he was released. He was scheduled to make like 11 million that season when the BEST QB's were making 8-9.

Originally posted by aacadena:
we thought Rattay was good. LOL

thats not true. Ownership and Management made an REAL attempt to fill the QB position with Garcia. After he left they would never make a true attempt again until April of 2005. Rattay and more importantly that caliber of QB is all the Niners could afford in between Garcia and Alex. So, sure there was hope for Rattay but no one stopped looking for a QB because of him...thats a joke. They needed to get out of cap hell, which they did in April of 2005.

Its that same reason you have not seen the Niners acquire a expensive QB since Alex, all we can afford is the likes of dilfer, hill, JTO, huard etc

Because he didn't consistently find his wide receivers unless it was a broken play. When Rattay came in, he found the wide receivers within the offense with ease. Even TO began to vouch for Rattay. We realized Garcia was not taking us far enough and we need to chance on a different QB because at that time, to the 49ers, if you weren't winning the superbowl, you may as well go 4-12.

Well, we learned our lesson of the superbowl or bust mentality.