But they won't completely close the door on Packers quarterback Brett Favre.

"I'm never going to be the guy that puts his foot down and says we're going to do this," coach Jon Gruden said. "I work with people. Until we get together and see what the issues are at hand, we'll address it (when the time comes). But as I sit here today, Jeff Garcia is our quarterback and I'm very excited about that."

Garcia, 38, missed workouts over the weekend to attend a 35-year reunion of a junior college national championship team coached by his dad in Gilroy, Calif.

The Packers are seeking a first-round pick in exchange for Favre, but that is thought to only be a starting point in negotiations.

The Bucs already have five quarterbacks under contract. But apparently, they would consider swapping one 38-year-old passer for another if Favre was willing to play for another team.

It's a delicate situation for the Bucs, who don't want to anger Garcia after he led the Bucs to an NFC title and was named to the Pro Bowl. But he also is in the final year of his contract that only pays him $2.5 million and there was a lack of progress toward an extension.

"You would think there would come a time, as a player, to where you feel you've established yourself at a certain level, where there aren't any more questions about your abilities," Garcia said. "Obviously, those questions are still out there.

"It's been an uphill battle for me throughout my career in getting people to appreciate what I can do on the field. If it means I have to fight that battle again, first of all, it's nothing new for me. Does it get old after a while? Yes, it does."

--Beleaguered quarterback Chris Simms returned to the practice field for the first time in nearly a year Saturday and admitted he squeezed the football a little too tightly at times.

"My biggest issues was just conquering nerves today," Simms said. "I told one guy, it was as nervous as I've been since maybe my first start in Texas-Oklahoma.

"It started right away when we started throwing routes against air," Simms said. "Like I said, being up in New Jersey or around here just throwing to a guy who's standing where he's supposed to be. Then you drop back and you see Ike Hilliard or Mike Clayton coming out of the cut. I choked a few times when I saw them coming out, but for the most part, I got through it."

Simms, 27, has asked to be traded or released and last month said he couldn't work with coach Jon Gruden.

--First-round pick Aqib Talib signed a 5-year, $14 million deal. Of that, $8.2 million is guaranteed. Talib joins a heated competition in the secondary, where the Bucs are quite deep at cornerback. He will battle with Phillip Buchanon for the starting job at left cornerback.

--GM Bruce Allen dismissed reports about an altercation between first-round pick Aqib Talib and seventh-round pick Corey Boyd at an NFL Rookie Symposium as 'blown out of proportion.'

"We had employees who were also at that rookie symposium and I think it was blown out of proportion on many of the reports I've seen," Allen said. "That was handled about three minutes after the reports came out."

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