Garcia Back, But Questions Remain For Archer, Sharks

Adam Markowitz
Saturday April 12, 2014

JACKSONVILLE -- The last time he stepped on the field wearing the red and black of the Jacksonville Sharks, he threw a touchdown pass on the final play of ArenaBowl XXIV. Now, he's thrown for 60,194 yards, and he's the only man in professional football history to throw for more than 1,000 touchdowns. After throwing the ball 7,488 times, completing 4,850 passes, tossing 1,304 touchdowns, playing in 226 games for 18 seasons in nine different cities, Garcia has come back for a 19th season in the Arena Football League.

Garcia only threw one pass on his first night back in the AFL, a 24-yard touchdown pass a play after incumbent quarterback RJ Archer was shaken up after a sack by Richard Clebert.

This writer can't imagine that Garcia was brought back to North Florida without knowing that he was ultimately going to be the starting quarterback. At least for this night, Garcia was warming the bench, though if you ask him, he'll tell you exactly why he reported to Jacksonville.

"That's what I came here for. I'm here to be the starter," said Garcia. "I'm here to lead this team the best I can."

Moss wasn't quite ready to anoint Garcia as his man going forward, but he all but stated that No. 8 was going to be most likely be his man at some point down the line.

"Is Aaron going to be my starting quarterback?" mused Moss. "He's only practiced one or two days, but I would imagine, you know, Aaron is Aaron. It's going to be hard to keep him out."

It's tough not to feel bad for Archer if this is how this all plays out. He has 22 TDs against just three INTs this season (the third of which was a junk time INT at the end of this game), yet he is likely about set to be benched when Garcia is set to get into the fray. The only really bad game which he played this year came against the Arizona Rattlers, and aside from that, he has averaged leading this offense to over 56 points per game.

"He hasn't thrown a lot of interceptions. His percentage rate has been high except for last week against Arizona on the road, so RJ has played really well," said Moss.

Archer was humble and essentially towed the company line, stating, "I've got to control what I can control. If it's be out there, I'm going to do the best I can. If [Garcia's] out there, I'm going to try to be his eyes on the sidelines."

And then of course comes the question as to why Garcia decided to come back. It was only seven weeks ago that the 43-year old decided not to report to Jacksonville. At the time, he made the following statement on his Facebook page:

"Just to make things clear. I have not retired at this point. I have only to refused to report to Jacksonville. There are a lot of players and fans in Jacksonville I would love to play with and for, but that will only happen if I can provide for my family. Good luck to all of the players in Jax and around the league. Much love and respect to you all. Stay together, play hard and put on a show for the great fans of the AFL."

One can draw conclusions here as to what Garcia was really up to when he made that statement, and this writer has determined that it was a financial decision. Garcia more or less confirmed that in my postgame chat with him.

"I've got to figure out how I'm going to do things here in Jacksonville. I've got to figure out how to get some deals done with sponsors and things like that that will make it worth my while," Garcia said.

Garcia admitted that Orlando never spoke with him before trading him to the Sharks, and he assumed that he was going to be coming back to the City Beautiful for 2014. He had to "take care of some things," which apparently included trying to get some sponsorship deals.

Though I've spoken about this topic at length already, this is a question which begs to be brought up once again. Just because the Sharks have sponsors to "make it worth" Garcia's while to be here and play, does that mean that the other 13 teams in the league would have had that same opportunity? It's a question with an obvious answer, though no one will come right out and tell you that that is the case.

Regardless, the second Aaron Garcia era has begun in Jacksonville, and it picked up right where the first one left off… throwing a touchdown pass.

Photo Credit: Philip Podskalan © 2014