Chris Simms Starting AND In Shotgun? Is It His Birthday?

You have to hand it to Jon Gruden. He had every reason in the world to make Jeff Garcia his starting quarterback to start this week's OTAs. Gruden's obvious and sometimes embarassing man-love for Garcia, the years it took to get him to Tampa, his experience in the west coast offense, his Gannon-like "old man with an attitude" leadership qualities, his ability to scramble, Chris Simms's miserable first three games of 2006... it all predicted a Garcia-led offense in the offseason with the starter's job being his to lose.

It turns out that Gruden values Simms's experience with him over all that other stuff so much that not only is he the incumbent starter, he gets to play some snaps in the shotgun formation, the one thing we all knew would benefit Simms and his batted-ball syndrome (try not to cringe.) Gruden has denied any interest in using the shotgun in the past. When he was asked about it a few years ago he said:

The shotgun doesn't guarantee anything other than you're going to catch the ball deeper than where you take it away from the center.

But back then the major problem was the offensive line protecting the quarterback, not defensive lines rejecting Brad Johnson's passes. Shotgun definitely isn't a cure for bad line protection, but it will certainly help cover up Simms's slow delivery and apparent lack of vision until he can get coached up properly in those areas. Hats off to Gruden for being willing to adapt to his quarterback's strengths and weaknesses. Now, if Simms fails in the shotgun, there probably won't be any excuse big enough to save him from being cut at the end of the season.