Jeff Garcia: Be Ready to Strike

So moving from the CFL to the NFL and having some early success, you find yourself back on the bench.

Was anything that sort of stood out from that first win that you, I guess, you were led to believe, but the following games forced you to reconsider?

Yeah, you know, I started to just feel the pressure.

You know, one loss led to two losses, to three, then four.

And I started to feel that outside pressure.

I was allowing that outside pressure to really have an impact on me because it's Anybody on the outside looking at the 49ers at that time really saw a major difference at one position, and it was the quarterback position.

They went from Joe Montana to Steve Young to Hall of Famers to Super Bowl winners to now Jeff Garcia playing quarterback.

And the team's struggling.

The team hadn't struggled like that.

in 20 years and so where's the major difference well it must be the quarterback and granted that team had hit an age or a process in their maturity where certain positions had gotten too old and we just weren't as competitive as a team as they had been in years prior and it had caught up with them but that being said I looked at it like Everybody's looking at me.

I'm the major difference.

I'm the reason why we're not successful.

And so for me, it took getting benched.

It took watching from the sideline to see and realize that there are more problems with this team than just the quarterback position.

The other quarterback that stepped in for me didn't have any more success.

As a matter of fact, he probably struggled more than I struggled.

And that's probably why they gave me the job back.

And also during that time, the quarterback coach who took me aside and told me that, hey, we're going to give you the ball again, Jeff.

You're going to be our starter going into next week.

But I want you to do something.

I've created this package of clips that I want you to watch.

And it shows your success on the field.

It shows you making the right decision, making the right throw, being accurate, being on time, showing you that you're capable of being successful in this league.

Now it's just a matter of your consistency.

Now it's just a matter of stringing it together.