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Thank Rose For Garcia's Headfirst Sliding Style

Tribune photo by CLIFF McBRIDE

For Garcia, diving headfirst is as natural as throwing a football with his right hand.

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By ROY CUMMINGS | The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 5, 2008

TAMPA - No matter how hard he tries, Bucs coach Jon Gruden can't seem to get quarterback Jeff Garcia to stop tumbling headfirst into the end of his runs outside the pocket.

Now we know why.

For Garcia, diving headfirst is as natural as throwing a football with his right hand. Any attempt to finish off a run in some other fashion has always resulted in near disaster.

"In the past, when I've attempted to slide feet first, that hurt more than sliding headfirst," Garcia said. "It just wasn't natural to me. So I do what comes natural.

"I think a part of it comes from growing up and playing baseball and sliding headfirst, going Pete Rose all the time instead of feet first. It's just the way I've always played the game."

He played it that way last week. During the Bucs' 23-20 victory against the Saints, Garcia ran out of the pocket seven times, gaining 42 critical yards. On most every occasion, he plunged headfirst into the end of his run - and an oncoming tackler.

"And every time he came back to the huddle and we told him, 'Get down; stop doing that,'" receiver Michael Clayton said. "He knows it. I mean, we'd rather he just throw the ball."

Gruden won't go that far. He relishes Garcia's ability to turn a broken play into a big gain and seems to have begrudgingly accepted the fact that Garcia's approach to doing that won't change.

"Jeff's got his own style, and it's a style that we bought into," Gruden said. "It's interesting at times. It makes every play interesting. He's just a great competitor."

Garcia admits he can be a smarter competitor. He's working on that. At 38, though, can this old quarterback learn some new tricks?

"I do need to remind myself to protect myself a little bit better," he said. "I have to do things that keep me out of harm's way when it's not necessary to go there. There are times when there's no need to try to get that extra yard because it's either a situation where you're not close to the first down or you're beyond the first down.

"So it's really just a matter of being smarter with my decision-making, and I'm capable of doing that."

Reporter Roy Cummings can be reached at (813) 259-7979.

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