There was a rare Chris Simms sighting at One Buc Place this morning, and he brought with him some encouraging news.

Simms said that after extensive efforts to address his recurring physical problems related to his splenectomy in September 2006, he finally feels like he is back to normal. It was most apparent when Simms recently did a throwing session and felt better than at any point since his surgery.

"Everything felt normal," he said. "I almost cried. It was just a month ago, it was the first time I'd gone out there and not just lobbed it, but dropped back and threw with some authority. I can't lie to you. When I first went out there, I was like, 'Man, how is this going to go?' I was scared."

Simms was placed on injured reserve in October when the Bucs needed a roster spot to replace injured tailbacks Cadillac Williams and Michael Pittman. Since then, he has visited a Toronto-based exercise physiologist, Dr. Tony Galea, who has helped him recover from the complicated aftereffects that we've reported on over the past several months.

"It's not the kind of injury a normal surgeon or that kind of doctor would know anything about," Simms said. "You need a guy who knows how the (muscles) work. That's who I ended up seeing. This guy is a specialist as far as knowing how each muscle affects the one next to it.

". . . I had a lot of muscles that were shut off around the scar. It's pretty common when you have a bad scar like that. The body knows the shut off the muscles to protect the scar. So, that's why I lost power and didn't feel like myself throwing the ball."