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Gary Shelton, The St.Petersburg Times, published 26 November 2007
Okay, guys, let's be orderly about this. Chiropractors to the left, acupuncturists to the right and massage therapists around back. As for the rest of you, just toss those Doan's pills over the fence of the Bucs' training facility whenever you are ready. Jeff Garcia, the backbone of the Bucs, is hurting. Given that, perhaps the rest of you do not feel so good yourselves.
It was hard to tell which was more painful on Sunday afternoon: the sight of Garcia after he injured his back or that of his team attempting to play offense without him. If you consider the stiffness, if you consider the soreness, if you consider the inability to move, then pretty much the images were identical.
In other words, if you suspected Garcia was kind of important to the Bucs before, well, now you know it for sure. And furthermore, yikes.
The Bucs spent most of their how-did-they-manage-that victory over Washington contemplating life without Garcia, and to tell you the truth, it was ugly enough to burn your retinas. It was like seeing a football team look down from a cliff onto the jagged rocks below. The longer you watched, the more it looked exactly like last year.
Remember this? Remember Bruce Gradkowski looking overwhelmed? Remember the offensive line looking overpowered? Remember the running back looking overrun? Remember the offense looking pointless? When it looked darned near yardless? Remember all the way back to ... Sunday?
This is the alternative to Garcia? This is what awaits if the pain in his back lingers or if another injury awaits?
Consider this: The Bucs went the entire second half of Sunday's game without a first down. Except for a kneel-down play at the end, they had four possessions, and they went three-and-out four times. They ran 13 plays, and they gained 15 yards. Yes, they won, but only because of six turnovers and a fourth-and-dumb play at the goal line by a Redskins team that appears misguided even by Washington standards.
Make no mistake. As of now, the Bucs' season lies somewhere in Garcia's lower back, on the right side, just below the rib cage and just above the hip bone. If he's fine, the Bucs might be, too. If he isn't, they aren't.
Perhaps that is why most of the second half of Sunday's game was like watching Garcia work the runway at a fashion show. You could not take your eyes off of him. He would briskly walk along the sideline from the 30 to the 30 and turn. He would toss a few passes. He would approach coach Jon Gruden. He would stretch. He would walk some more. He would throw a little harder. He would approach Gruden again.
"We need our quarterback," Gruden said. "We need Jeff Garcia. I don't know of any team that can win when its star quarterback is disabled. If Tiger Woods' caddie hits all his shots for him, he isn't going to win the Masters."
For the record, Garcia says he will be ready to play against New Orleans. Perhaps. But in the locker room after the game, Garcia moved like a 100-year-old man with a 200-year-old spine. Changing clothes seemed to be a long, painful ordeal. There was a large red welt on his back, and when he reached for a towel with his left hand, it seemed as if it took him 30 seconds to get there. "It feels like a boxer hit me with a severe kidney shot," Garcia said. "I think Rocky got ahold of me today."
Odd, because for most of the year, Garcia has played the Stallone role. He has managed games brilliantly, and his play has been the main reason for the resurgence of a team that won only four games a year ago. On Sunday's first play, however, Garcia took a blow to his back from Cornelius Griffin. He played two more plays, then he had to take himself out of the game.
Without Garcia, the offense unraveled. The Redskins safeties, 20 yards deep when the game began, suddenly were at the line of scrimmage. The Bucs' offensive line, which held its own early, had too many people to block. Running back Earnest Graham had nowhere to go. Gradkowski was unable to make the throws to make the Redskins play honestly.
With six minutes to go in the third period, Garcia began to throw harder. He alo began to pester Gruden more. "You could see the urgency in his eyes," Gruden said. "A lot of guys would say, 'It's not right' and curl up on the sideline. This guy is a competitor."
Finally, with 11:19 to play, Garcia re-entered the game to a rousing ovation. It would not be a bad assumption to believe some of the Bucs were among those cheering. Still, over his final seven plays, Garcia showed the effects of his injury, and on his second play back, he was sacked hard by Marcus Washington.
All of which leads to this question: What about next week? "I don't know," Gruden said. "It's different for a quarterback than it is for a jockey who rides a horse or a defensive back. He has to have freedom to throw the ball and to do all the other things he has done for us."
In the meantime, there will be ice, and there will be heat. Perhaps you want to leave your grandmother's liniment oil with the receptionist.
After all, it isn't just Garcia's back that is the problem. It's the fact that the Bucs offense is strapped across it.
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