With Super Bowl LX set to be played in the Bay Area once again on Feb. 8, former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Jeff Garcia has been a busy man, with several events and football camps set to take place leading up to the big game.

Garcia recently spoke with Essentially Sports about the California Classic Health Flag Football Camp, Pro Athlete Sports, presented by Zini, a sports mixer with Hall of Famer John Randle and Keena Turner, and all things 49ers and the upcoming Super Bowl between the New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks.

So you’ve got some events coming up leading to the Super Bowl. Can you tell us a little bit about those?

“It’s going to be a busy week, but this is my hometown area, going up in the South Bay Area, 30 miles from San Jose, Santa Clara, where the Niners play, an hour from San Francisco. So being able to return home and be a part of the festivities and give back is really important to me. Starting Saturday, on the 31st, we have the California Classic Health Flag Football Camp for ages 7 to 17, 18. I believe it is. And, you know, all levels of competition, flag, competitive tackle. But it’s going to be a great camp from 1 to 4 in the afternoon at Pioneer High School. We’ll be focused on, obviously, the skills of playing the game of football, working on flag, pulling all those things. We’ll have some competitive games, forming teams. We’ll have a lot of coaches, some college coaches from San Jose State joining in with us, players from San Jose State, and just really giving back to the community, and also sharing health awareness. SDA, Sudden Cardiac Arrest Awareness, CPR training, those types of things that will be integrated throughout the three hours of the camp. So it won’t just be physical on the field playing. You’re also going to learn some things about taking care of your body, taking care of your health, emergency-type situations, which I think are great for kids of all ages to have an understanding of.”

So what is it like having the kind of hoopla of the Super Bowl in the Bay Area again?

“I mean, I think it’s exciting for the Bay Area to be able to host, you know, being able to do that back in 2015. I think the new stadium was the first time the Bay Area had hosted a game since the early 1980s, when the game was held at Stanford Stadium. So to be able to get back in the mix based upon what the NFL has done with being able to host Super Bowls in different cities, not the norm, not just going just to Florida or to Southern California or to New Orleans or branching out and experiencing different stadiums, different communities, bringing back to those communities.

“I think it’s great that there’s a huge impact that the NFL has not only in this country, but the world and how they impact young people, how they impact adults, and to be able to give those people the experience from different parts of the country who can’t maybe afford to travel to a New Orleans or to a Miami or to a different Super Bowl site. Now it’s the Bay Area. Now they get to experience all aspects of the Bay Area and the North Bay Area. You’re talking Napa Valley, East Bay Area, Oakland and East, the South Bay Area, San Jose and South. There’s a lot of expansion when you talk about the Bay Area in itself. And there will be a lot going on because everybody wants to be involved. I think that’s one of the difficult things about being in the Bay Area, that things do get spread out. We’re hosting an event in July. I’m sorry, on February 7th, up in San Francisco. I’m also hosting an event in San Jose on February 5th. And I’m working another camp up on the east side of the Bay in Alameda on the 7th as well. So I’m being spread out a little bit myself. But that’s kind of what the Bay has to offer. There’s not going to be one city that hosts everything.

“Yes, a lot of the things will be in San Francisco, but San Jose will have a lot going on as well. And so that gives people an opportunity to experience it and to be a part of it. And I’m just grateful and thankful that I can go back to an area where I grew up, going to San Jose State, playing for the San Francisco 49ers, and be able to be a part of it, be able to give back to the community, give back to the kids. That’s the most important aspect of it for me. It’s not so much about the game. I’m hoping that the game is a great game. It’s a rematch of the, I believe, 2016 Super Bowl.

“I was hoping that Marshawn Lynch would be signed for a one-game contract and be given the ball on the one-yard line to make up for what didn’t happen 10 years ago. But that being said, I just hope that it’s a great game.”

Who do you have winning the Super Bowl: New England Patriots or Seattle Seahawks?

“I’m actually probably leaning towards Seattle. I think Seattle’s got a great team in all aspects, offense, defense, and special teams. And so does New England. You don’t go through an NFL season being 14-3 and not having the necessary tools across all aspects of the game to be competitive. I’ve just seen them do it too many times. And, you know, the [Sam] Darnold story is a great story.

“Here’s a quarterback that was looked at as a highly, highly sought-after college player coming out of USC, being a first-round pick, struggling with the Jets, a team that has struggled a lot in the past couple of decades, and trying to turn that thing around with the young quarterback, as we saw, was difficult to do. And it was difficult for him. And he had to go through some growing pains. But I think he really found himself when he went to San Francisco, he got to sit under Kyle Shanahan, learn how to operate an offense. Then he goes to Minnesota, and he gets the keys to the car. He’s a starter.

“He does an outstanding job in Minnesota, but obviously he’s disposable because they have another first-round pick that they need to get time for, which is a shame in a sense, because here you have a winner, a leader, an experienced guy, a mature guy. And he did exactly that in Seattle, stepping in and leading that team with his maturity and experience. He’s done a great job.

“Obviously, he’s got a great team around him, a running game. He’s got great receivers. He’s got all the tools to help him and is off the line. And then they have a great defense, and their special teams have shown to be a difference maker as well. So, you know, he’s kind of the special story. I think this Super Bowl, not taking anything away from May and New England and Brable and what he did in one year of turning that team around. But that team has been there, done that so many times. It’d be nice to see somebody like Seattle take it to the top.”

From a quarterback’s perspective, who do you think in the NFL today is the most underrated quarterback in the league?

“Wow, the most underrated quarterback in the league? I mean, to me, it’s easy to say that Brock Purdy doesn’t get the acknowledgement around the league that I believe he’s earned. I think people who are close to the 49ers, who support the 49ers, see what they have. They love him as a player. They love what he has done not only on the field, but in that locker room as a young player, as a leader with that team, as a winner. But I see the skill set. I see the anticipation that he has in throwing the football, how he throws guys open, how he runs that offense, and how he is athletic beyond what people think he is. He can extend plays. He can make plays with his feet. He can play outside the pocket. And I think those are things that he has shown to have no limitations, but people want to put limitations on him. They still want to knock him just because he wasn’t a top draft pick, just because he maybe doesn’t fit the prototype, which I think, in this day and age of the quarterback position, there really isn’t a prototype anymore. I think had I come out 20 years later than when I did come out, I probably would have been considered a draftable quarterback. But back in 1994, in the draft, I wasn’t 6’4″ or 6’5” and 225 pounds, which was the prototype at the time. So I wasn’t considered an NFL-style quarterback.

“Today, I’m probably more of an NFL-style quarterback, and that’s what Brock Purdy is. Brock just plays the game with such great intelligence. He runs that system, which is very complex in a lot of ways: a lot of moving parts, a lot of formations, a lot of shifts, a lot of adjustments. But he handles it with coolness. He understands it, and he executes it well. Now, he did a lot of that this year with not having top-tier receivers, not having a solid offensive line. He had a great running back, fortunately, to help him. But those are things that he had to overcome as a player as well. And he shows that. And not just to talk about Brock Purdy, but I think he’s one of those underrated guys that I feel has the tools to be a great one for many years to come. You know, you have a lot of other very talented quarterbacks in the National Football League. I think Drake May is proving people right in the sense that a young guy was coming out of North Carolina who was a top-tier quarterback and a top-round draft pick, but you just never know what you’re going to get. And all of a sudden, under Mike Vrabel and that system in New England, he has thrived this year, being considered an MVP-type candidate and leading his team to the Super Bowl. I mean, that’s amazing for a young quarterback of his age, his stature, to come in and have the year and the output that he has put together.

Which current quarterback in the league do you see yourself in the most?

“Sure, I think if there’s a quarterback that I have been compared to in the past, especially coming out in the draft, it’s probably Baker Mayfield.

“I don’t like how he finished the season, especially the last half of the year this year. They really had a tough year, but through the first half of the season, he was playing lights out. He plays with grit. He plays the game like I play the game. I was never one to slide. I always went for that extra yard, especially if it meant getting a first down.

I was going to get it. I see a lot of me in him in that sort of way. I mean, he plays with emotion, with intensity, which us undersized guys kind of have to have that sort of mentality, like it’s us against the world, the underdog mentality. I think he carries a lot of that with him and the things that he’s experienced in Cleveland, in Carolina, brief stint with the Rams, all those things have kind of he’s weathered that storm and he’s had the cuts and the bruises that have like scarred up on his body that he’s playing with and he uses a lot of that in how he plays the game today. It’s just unfortunate that they went through the drop-off that they did in the second half of the season. But I see a lot of myself in how he plays the game.”

How much pressure did you feel being the guy who had to follow in the footsteps of Joe Montana and Steve Young in San Francisco?

“It was tremendous pressure, especially in those first couple of years when I was trying to really just get my footing, you know, being thrown into the fire, so to speak, after the third, fourth game of the season when Steve went down with a concussion and now all of a sudden I’m the starting quarterback when really nobody knew what I was capable of. And I wasn’t sure what I was capable of. I was still learning the system, still trying to grow within the team. I thought that I would have a great opportunity to learn from one of the greatest to play the game, a future Hall of Famer. And Steve Young, I’d watch him for a couple of years, and then he’d retire, and then I’d take over. It happened a lot sooner. And initially, it was a struggle. I think I had to learn a lot in the first five starts that I had. And Montana was my idol.

“I grew up watching the 49ers. They were my favorite team growing up, since I was in the Bay Area. And Montana was my favorite guy, my favorite player. I wanted to emulate myself after Cool Joe, just as he did on the field. So composed, made it look so effortless, just so smooth. And, you know, it was a lot of who I wanted to be. And so, being able to follow the footsteps, first, I’m looking at it as a dream come true, how I’m going to the Niners. I’m going to the team I grew up watching. I’m playing in extension of what Joe Montana and Steve Young have done here. I got to be that next guy. And I tried my best, and I think I held my own for the most part and did some pretty darn good things. I still have some records I set back then, when I played for those five years, that still stand today.

“But more than anything, trying to replace them was the hardest thing that I had to do initially in trying to really be like them. And I think at the end of the day, I had to realize that I can’t be them. I have to be myself. I have to incorporate how I learned the game, how I’m capable of playing the game, and then apply that on the field. Don’t try to be Steve Young. Don’t try to be Joe Montana. I think there are certain tools that you could look at me that I had, maybe some of Joe, I had some of Steve, but at the end of the day, I was me, and I had to be me, and I think that’s what started to happen in my second year. We played really well offensively. We just weren’t a very good football team.

“We finally started to get things turned around under Steve Mariucci. We went to the playoffs in my third year. We won the division in my fourth year. And then all of a sudden things change again. They fire Mariucci. We go into that fifth year with an unknown, so to speak, of what our future is with the 49ers, and after that fifth year, the management ownership just wanted a clean house. And there were a handful of guys who were subject to that. Unfortunately, it ended for me, but it really was a dream come true to follow in Joe and Steve’s footsteps in San Francisco.

“I didn’t quite get there with a Super Bowl title, but I felt like I did a lot of great things for that team and being able to play in my hometown, being able to play following the footsteps of Hall of Famers like that was not an easy thing to do, but I feel like I did it respectfully and admirably in those five years of playing for the 49ers.”

Rapid-Fire Questions

Who was the teammate that pushed you the most, either in practice or in games?

“Initially, Jerry Rice. Jerry just has all the work ethic, the drive. He demonstrated. Didn’t talk about it, just did it. I think he was one of those guys. My center, Jeremy Newberry, is just tough as all get out. The expectation for him to lead that offensive line and for me to lead the rest of the crew, I think he was a guy who really instilled a lot in me. Those were two guys that I felt like had a major impact on my role there with the 49ers.”

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Best trash talker you ever faced on defense?

“John Randle, and I’m going to get a chance to do an event at the Sports Mixer with him in San Francisco on February 7th on Saturday. It’s going to be awesome at the box in San Francisco, but he and I are going to be on the panel, and I’ll get a chance to really talk to him about all that trash-talking and just where it comes from. You know, this is a guy that actually studied the program to see where guys were from, who their mom was, all these things just to kind of get under their skin, but he did it in a good way. It all came from a good place, but almost funny to listen to it when you watch the videos from back in the day.”

Loudest stadium you ever played in?

Wow. When you think about loud stadiums, I mean, I played in all of them. Kansas City was known for the noise and all those things. I played a playoff game in New Orleans when they were on their resurgent back from some tough times after Hurricane Katrina, that 2006 season, I was with the Philadelphia Eagles, and we played down in New Orleans in 2000, early 2007. That playoff game, that crowd, after what they had gone through, just the year prior, everything that they had experienced, I think there was nothing like it, that crowd noise, we could not hear each other talk in the huddle. It was, and it really became a factor in the game with a slight hesitation, a false start at the end of the game.

“That took away a big play for us that possibly could have led to the change or outcome in the game. But that was probably the loudest stadium that I had ever experienced while playing in a National Football League game.”

Favorite receiver you ever threw to, if you could say?

“I think just going back to what I grew up with, being able to watch Joe Montana throw to Jerry Rice, being able to watch Steve Young throwing to Jerry Rice, getting to meet Jerry Rice when I was in college, and then basically having the opportunity to now fulfill that dream and throw to Jerry Rice, that has to be my favorite. I had a lot of great receivers throughout my day, but Jerry’s the top of the top.”

Who do you have for the NFL MVP? It sounds like it’s down to Drake Maye and Matthew Stafford at this point.

“I think Stafford, just longevity, what he did with that team this year. I mean, it’s hard to take away from May, but I think May’s got a great supporting cast as well, and he’s a young guy, he’ll probably be up for it again. I mean, how do you take away from a guy who led his team to the Super Bowl?

“It’s very difficult to do, especially being in your second year. But I think, as an old hat, I’m just leaning towards Stafford. I mean, I think he had a remarkable year. He did a great job with that offense and running that system, doing what they asked him to do at the line of scrimmage, how he plays the game efficiently, effectively, I guess I’m just leaning towards Stafford for that one.”