Jeff Garcia is setting the record straight over his comments towards ESPN reporter Mina Kimes. The former NFL quarterback took some heat for criticizing Kimes for her take on San Francisco 49ers quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo. In an Instagram comment to a post, Garcia asked “Who the hell is Mina Kimes” and went on to criticize her for taking aim at Garoppolo while never playing the game.” He recently appeared on Steiny & Guru of 95.7 The Game in San Francisco and explained why he made the comments.
“Well first of all, I don’t owe anybody an apology for my beliefs and my experience at playing the quarterback position,” Garcia said. “The difficulty of that position, the expectation on that position, how qualified you have to be one of 32 starters in a National Football League from a mental and physical standpoint. People want to comment and tear down individuals based upon statistics — the only statistic that matters right now is are you winning or losing games.
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“There was nothing sexist from what I had to say, outside of the fact that, yes, women don’t play professional football, there are women that do participate in football but had it been a man saying the same thing, I would’ve had the same response for that man…All I care about is our 49ers fans and what my family thinks, and what my close friends think. That’s all that matters.”
Garcia went on to say the comment was more for the 49ers fans “There was a post from my feed that came from a 49ers faithful. It was in his post where he screenshot what Mina had said based upon the video,” he said. “He shared the video. I made a comment on his post, or at least that’s what I thought I was doing, to the 49ers faithful saying, ‘Hey, I’m behind Jimmy. He knows he has to play better. We’re all self-critical at this level of how we play the game’. It just so happened that she was the mouth on the end of the video post that was shared…If it would’ve been anybody else ripping into the 49ers quarterback, I would’ve said the same thing. It had nothing to do with the fact that she was a woman, it just so happened to be the timing that I caught the subject matter. I don’t care what anybody else has to say.”
This started when Kimes went on First Take and said the 49ers are winning in the playoffs despite the play of Garoppolo. In the two playoff games, Garoppolo has thrown zero touchdown passes and two interceptions, but the 49ers are defeated Dallas Cowboys the Green Bay Packers to advance to the NFC Championship game. Garcia played in the NFL from 1999 to 2009 and spent the majority of his career with the 49ers.
