FanHouse

In the book Vinyl Junkies: Adventures in Record Collecting by Brett Milano, satirical American comic artist Robert Crumb shared his opinions on collectors. They weren't exactly positive.

"Collecting is creepy. Record collectors put each other down for their various fixations. Everybody is convinced that his way of collecting is superior. They look down on casual collectors, who are just accumulators - the kind who'll just pick up anything and let it pile up. A true collector is more of a connoisseur, and that's the good thing about collecting. It creates a connoisseurship to sort out what's worthwhile in the culture and what isn't."

The more I read this quote, the more I think of Jon Gruden and the collection of quarterbacks he's amassed in Tampa Bay.

Right now, the Buccaneers have five, count 'em, five quarterbacks on the roster, from cagey veterans like Jeff Garcia and Brian Griese to more developmental projects like Luke McCown, Chris Simms and Bruce Gradkowski. Oh, and Bucs GM Bruce Allen told reporters he hasn't given up on Jake Plummer yet, and no one was certain if he was joking.

It's all a little bit obsessive, don't you think?

After all, how many quarterbacks does an NFL team really need? I'd say three at the most, and I say that in spite of the number of quarterbacks the Carolina Panthers went through in 2007. Gruden, however, seems to have this obsession with having as many quarterbacks around him as possible.

This obsession played itself out last weekend in Tampa when Gruden and former Buc QB (and current Buc personnel executive) Doug Williams invited 50 quarterbacks from central Florida high schools to a free one-day camp at One Buc Place -- a concept that was Gruden's idea from the start. He put the kids through various drills, workouts and film sessions to show them all what made some NFL quarterbacks so successful.

On the surface, it's a grand gesture from an NFL team to the local community, and if the Bucs repeated it every year, high school coaches would probably love that. It might even produce a few great college and pro QBs one of these days. Still, Gruden came up with an idea that would surround him with 50 quarterbacks. Doesn't it seem like Gruden would prefer to do just that with the Bucs every day? And at some point, doesn't that start to get a little ... creepy?

Perhaps I'm just reading too much into this. Perhaps Gruden is just fascinated with the quarterback position the same way I was once fascinated with ninth key patterns. We all get tuned into the nuances of certain games we really like. Still, it makes you wonder just how far Gruden will carry this obsession -- especially on a team that still needs to strengthen its running game and its receiving corps. Quarterbacks can't do it all by themselves.