Chris Simms' arm isn't reacting as quickly to his mind and he indicated his struggles are related to surgery to remove his spleen last September.

"My mind is not the problem as far as dropping back and finding the open receiver,'' Simms said. "It's just that I'm a little late trying to get it to him or a little inaccurate with it. It's like my mind says, 'Okay, there he is, he's open.' I'm just not quick and sharp with it.

"I don't know if anybody really knows. It's not an injury you can go back and look at the records of and say, 'This guy had it in '98.' It's an unknown thing, I think, to a lot of people. I'm just going to keep trying to plug away and we'll see what happens.''

Simms has been struggling with symptoms of irregular proprioception, a sixth sense that allows a person to know the relationship of their arms and legs to their body. The condition is not uncommon following abdominal surgery. Simms had his spleen removed Sept. 24.   

Simms took three throwing reps during a 7-on-7 drills Friday, connecting on a deep pass to receiver Joey Galloway. But he was a bystander during the 11-on-11 periods. He did some extra work following practice with quarterbacks coach Paul Hackett.

Simms said the sore elbow that bothered him early in training camp is no longer an issue.

"I'm the kind of guy, I've never had a sore arm in my life,'' Simms said. "I think you guys saw the amount of balls I threw last year in camp.

"I'm just trying to get myself used to those normal motions you do as a quarterback every day and just kind of retraining my body.''

Simms said he feels healthy in terms of running and his ability to take a hit. But he is having trouble regaining his throwing motion despite having worked on it since December. He is considerably behind Jeff Garcia, Luke McCown and Bruce Gradkowski. 

"But as far as just throwing the ball? I'm not going to put a (percentage) on it,'' Simms said. "You guys know enough to see what I look like and I think you've seen me throw for four years straight. Throwing the ball has never been an issue for me. That's always been my strongest attribute. I'm just trying to make that click on all cylinders.''

As for the deep ball to Galloway, Simms said it felt like old times.

"That was good,'' Simms said. "It was a long time since I've hit him on a deep ball like that. It really did, it felt good. We got the look we wanted from the defense and once he's even, he's leaving. That's the motto. He left.''

Photo: Joseph Garnett Jr. | Times