Fantasy owners, listen up: Buccaneers’ head coach Jon Gruden has all but declared quarterback Jeff Garcia the team’s starter for 2007. Chris Simms, meanwhile, will likely take his place on the bench as the team’s number two.

“Right now, Jeff Garcia is clearly the leader in the clubhouse,” Gruden said when addressing the quarterback position.

Garcia, if you recall, led the Philadelphia Eagles to the playoffs last season before losing to the Saints. This isn’t to imply that the Buccaneers are poised for a breakout season, but it does mean that Garcia has enough in the tank to be an NFL starter and a good one at that.

Is he poised for a fantasy breakout season? The Buccaneers have plenty of questions at wide receiver, though the same could be said of the Eagles last season. But for Garcia and the team to succeed, the offensive line will need to step it up from last season when it took running back Cadillac Williams until the fourth game of the season to eclipse 50 yards in a game; his first and only rushing touchdown came in week three.

3 year statistics

                 +---------------------------------------+-----------------+
                 |              Passing                  |     Rushing     |
+----------+-----+---------------------------------------+-----------------+
| Year  TM |   G |  Comp   Att   PCT    YD   Y/A  TD INT |  Att  Yards  TD |
+----------+-----+---------------------------------------+-----------------+
| 2004 cle |  11 |   144   252  57.1  1731   6.9  10   9 |    35   169   2 |
| 2005 det |   6 |   102   173  59.0   937   5.4   3   6 |    17    51   1 |
| 2006 phi |   8 |   116   188  61.7  1309   7.0  10   2 |    25    87   0 |
+———-+—–+—————————————+—————–+
|  TOTAL   |  99 |  1811  2973  60.9 20385   6.9 136  73 |   396  1868  24 |
+———-+—–+—————————————+—————–+

Quick fact: the Buccaneers threw for 2798 yards last season, just enough to rank 26th in the league, and their 14 total touchdown passes tied them for 28th.

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