By Tom Canavan
The Associated Press

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. - There was always a weekend in the latter part of April when Chris Simms would park himself in front of the television and try to figure out who the New York Giants would draft to play with his father, and what players would end up where.

That was fun.

But now he sweats out his future and deals with the hype of being Phil Simms' kid on the eve of the draft.

"It's been exciting, but at the same time, it's been an anxious time waiting for Saturday to get here," Simms said. "The experience so far has been great and the idea that I got to meet a lot of the coaches that I watched on TV and admired has been great."

The end won't come until this weekend, when either commissioner Paul Tagliabue or NFL executive Gene Washington walks to the microphone at Madison Square Garden and announces that some team has selected: "Chris Simms, quarterback, Texas."

There's much uncertainty where Simms will be picked or when. Some expect he will go late in the first round, others say in the second.

"I really don't know," Simms said. "The crazy thing is I have been such a big football fan since I was little, always into the draft. I truly feel this is one of the weirdest years I can ever remember. You just don't know what's going to happen."

Southern California quarterback Carson Palmer will be the No. 1 pick in a draft loaded with defensive linemen. After that, it gets real interesting for the quarterbacks.

"Palmer is No. 1 in the draft, no doubt," Giants coach Jim Fassel said. "Behind that you are looking for a guy with an upside, and there are two or three or four of them, and Chris is one of them. He has a huge upside and I don't think he has much of a downside. He is going to do nothing but get better."

Fassel is a little biased. He was an assistant coach with the Giants when Simms' father was in the twilight of his career.

One of Fassel's first memories of little Simms was having to pull Phil out of a meeting after the youngster was hit by a car while riding his bicycle.

"I was 11," Chris Simms recalled. "I was riding with my friend and we were racing in the street. Basically, his driveway led into my driveway and one of our next door neighbors was driving down the street and we didn't look up or down and just flew out into the street and I got hit by the car."

Chris Simms landed on his face, lost four front teeth and got a lot of stitches. He also learned to look both ways.

It's something the left-hander has carried through life.

"He is very coachable," Fassel said. "He had plenty from his dad all the way to the University of Texas. The big thing is when you work with him, can you see the changes? And you do. He is a guy you can mold. He's not stuck. He doesn't say, 'I can't do that physically or make that adjustment.' "

Simms, 6-foot-4 and 220 pounds, completed 58.7 percent of passes for 7,097 yards, 58 TDs and 31 interceptions during his four-year career at Texas. He was 25-6 as a starter.

The rap on him is he never won any big games with Longhorns. Simms is baffled by the criticism. He led the Big 12 in passing his final three seasons and led the Longhorns to a 22-4 mark the last two.

"Usually the people who say that focus on the Oklahoma game," Simms said. "I have no excuses about that game. Sometimes I didn't play well and they were a better team than us; straight up they beat us man to man. That's just the way it goes sometimes in football."

What Simms knows is he is ready to play in the NFL. The last eight years of being under a microscope have prepared him for it.

Dallas Cowboys coach Bill Parcells agrees.

"I've known him since he was a young man. I know how he's been raised. He's a fine young man," Parcells said. "I think he had a real good college career. His team certainly won a lot of games, and I think he produced at a very good level."

Parcells wouldn't say whether the Cowboys would draft Simms.

"I mean, the chances of that happening, whatever percentage it is, it's certainly minuscule, but if it did happen, then I'd look forward to it," said Parcells, who was Phil Simms' coach in January 1987, when the Giants beat Denver and Simms was the Super Bowl MVP.

Chris Simms remembers those days, being in the locker room and hanging around with Lawrence Taylor.

"I was really fortunate in the lifestyle I grew up," Chris Simms said. "It was a great time in my life to hang around the Giants' locker room, with legends like that. I don't regret one thing about my life."

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