Originally posted by qnnhan7:
No one was sold on Garcia when Walsh brought him over from Canada. If we had a Niner board at the time, there would be a lot of WTF!? I heard Mariucci gave him time in practice but it wasn't good. He was on the smallish side who looked like he can't take a hit. His thrown ball was ugly short, medium, or long. I'm sure Walsh had to do some major selling to the coaching staff just to get Garcia on the football field. When he did get a chance on the football field he was OK at best, and actually stunk it up so badly, he was bench...I want to say 2 games? They end up putting him back in because Stenstrum or who ever it was at the time was even worse. But the lights went on for Garcia after the benching, and he end up very consistent, mobile, and very heady. His ball was still terrible looking, but they get there to the receivers. For those who didn't get to see him play, watch some of the old highlights. There was rarely any tight spirals, but you can here it quacking towards the tv screen into the receivers hands for a TD. He was at his best the last 2 minutes of the half or the end of the game. During those minutes, it was almost like playground football to him.
Walsh spoke highly of Garcia. Saying he won the Gray Cup of Canadian League football and had caught Walsh's eyes in one of the bowl game against Walsh's team. Like everyone else at the time, I just thought Walsh was so desperate for a qb and off his rocker.
IIRC Garcia's dad was a coach at SJSU and knew Walsh through the local coaching circles, and he landed on the team as something of a favor. I'm sure Walsh also saw him play in college more than any other pro coach.
Also, not that it matters, but I think his original rating in Madden was 58 overall or something like that.
Only 9er QB to throw for 30 TDs in 2 consecutive seasons.
[ Edited by Digger on Sep 2, 2011 at 8:05 AM ]