Posts tagged Jon Gruden at FanHouse

It is very dangerous to attempt to trade for a quarterback like Brett Favre when you already have someone like Jeff Garcia coming off a Pro Bowl season as your starter. Not because Favre would hurt the team if he came in, but because if you whiff on the deal, it's egg all over your face and you have a ticked off old man running your team.

Which is what Jon Gruden has now, judging by Garcia's comments yesterday.

Garcia took another shot at Bucs Coach Jon Gruden when asked if he had any hard feelings about Tampa Bay's pursuit of former Green Bay quarterback Brett Favre.

"I'm just a journeyman according to some people. Why should I have any hard feelings? I'm thankful to have this job.

"I might pay Bruce and Jon for bringing me out here," Garcia said after Monday afternoon's practice.

That sounds so evil, but I think he means he should hand over money for the opportunity to play football. Unless -- *gasp* -- he's actually planning on muuuuuurder. (Sorry, I've been watching too much Caruso on A&E lately.)

I get that the Bucs wanted Favre, but it's not like the Jets gave up that much to pick him up -- if you're Tampa and you've already shown your cards, don't you at that point go over top and make sure you lock the guy up?

FoxSports.com's Alex Marvez thinks today's the day -- Brett Favre should be a Buccaneer before midnight. Whether that happens is another issue.

And while Tampa Bay will likely get rid of one (or more) of the five quarterbacks currently on the roster, head coach Jon Gruden is in no mood to answer your stupid questions about what the future holds for his team, particularly when it comes to Favre. So, um, beat it.

, "You can talk to Brett, yourself. If we have permission, I"m sure you do, too," Gruden said in his media huddle after the first workout. "I don't have any reports on Brett, okay. There'll be some more opportunities to write stories on this situation. It's a great story to cover. I wish I had time to cover all the things that are going on. His situation is going to handle itself."

The primary issue for the Bucs -- at least right now -- is what this all means for incumbent quarterback Jeff Garcia. Presumably, he's less excited than, say, Gruden about the possibility of Favre coming to town. No worries, though, Gruden's got a handle on it.

This morning, Bacon broke the news that John Daly and his beer gut are crazier than ever, and as he "prepares" for the Open Championship, he's advised Butch Harmon, his former swing coach (for all of four months), to stay the hell away.

In addition to these gems, Golf Channel's Rich Lerner also got a few choice nuggets from Daly and Harmon, the best of which are transcribed below.

Harmon: "He's a person who likes to blame other people for any of his shortcomings and I'm sorry he's like that ..."

This all stems from the PODS Championship earlier this year, when Daly had Buccaneers coach Jon Gruden on the bag for part of the first round. Big John claimed that his regular caddie was injured and he needed someone to carry his bag. Harmless enough, right. Uh, no.

Harmon dumped Daly afterward (and this didn't help, I imagine), and now, JD feels he needs to set the record straight: "

... But then the stories come out that I was drinking in the [Hooter's] tent [during the rain delay] drunk and stuff on Thursday, and it's a joke.

Two days later, after rounds of 78, 80, Daly returned to the Hooter's tent to do "charity work."

Yeah, I had a couple of beers, big deal. Signed about, you know, 1,000 autographs, it was a great day, and the next thing I know, it's more bad rumors come out."

Which led to this, and today, this.

Hear that? It's the pitter-patter of fantasy football season approaching. Fantasy FanHouse is here to get you ready by previewing every team from a fantasy perspective.

Meet the ...
NFC South defending champs! I say that with sarcasm because, well, it just doesn't seem plausible. With the exception of one computer (whose owners didn't really even believe it), almost no one saw the Bucs' season coming. Especially after Cadillac Williams went down for the season. But they did it anyway. The problem now for fantasy owners is that very few of the Tampa Bay players will sneak up on anyone. Earnest Graham, in particular, is already being targeted in the second and third round range.

The Breakout
Ugh. Really? I mean, come on. I guess if we're saying "sleeper" here, I'll take Cadillac, just for the upside. I was going say Michael Clayton, but that just seems lazy. Cadillac reportedly has gotten a lot healthier since last season, but hey, there's this Graham guy. Graham can't be a breakout simply because he's going relatively high, and it seems like the Bucs won't give him enough touches to make anything more than a RB2.

This seems fitting: now that Warren Sapp is retired (and Jon Gruden has agreed to chair his Hall of Fame campaign committee), he's free to speak his mind, and he's more than happy to tell you about his time with the Raiders. Short version: man, that place sucked. Slighter longer, more descriptive version, courtesy of an interview with the St. Petersburg Times:

Q: How would you describe your experience with the Raiders?

A: As dark as a black hole. Stuff went on in that organization that shouldn't go on in sports. I don't think there's one person who knows who or what is making the call. Let's just say the Oakland experience is unique. The phone rings quite a bit on that sideline. Insubordination is grounds for termination in any company.

I'm pretty sure he's not using "black hole" in the laudatory manner usually reserved for the Oakland Coliseum on game days. With that cleared up, why is Sapp confused about who has final say on, well, everything? Isn't that the one thing we can all agree on? That Al Davis is still calling the shots, despite the occasional report to the contrary?

Buccaneers coach Jon Gruden and former Buccaneers defensive tackle Warren Sapp haven't always seen eye to eye. Sapp has said that he thinks Tony Dungy deserves more credit than Gruden for the Bucs' Super Bowl title, and Gruden didn't shed any tears when Sapp left Tampa Bay for Oakland.

But if there was any bad blood between them, it's gone now. At a retirement party for Sapp over the weekend, Gruden had this to say:

"If Warren Sapp doesn't go into the Hall of Fame on the first ballot, you'd better check the IQ of the voters. No disrespect to anyone, but he's the favorite guy I've ever coached."

I would be fine with Sapp getting into the Hall of Fame, but I don't think he's a sure thing, and I'll be quite surprised if he gets in on the first ballot, considering that he's coming up at the same time as several players who I think were better, including Brett Favre, Michael Strahan and Jonathan Ogden.

It might be a good idea to check the IQ of the Hall of Fame voters, but Sapp not getting in wouldn't be the reason.

John Daly, jokingly, no doubt, suggested that the premature end to Tiger Woods' 2008 season would give him a better chance to win now. Daly's myriad missteps have been painstakingly document over his career, and this year is no different. He's into Year 2 of trying to earn his PGA Tour card, has already been dumped by world-famous Butch Harmon, had Buccaneers head coach Jon Gruden on the bag for nine holes, and still loves the hell out of Hooters.

But he's not getting any closer to winning. Not even a little bit. This week, teed it up at the BMW International, a European Tour event. The good news: he shot an even-par round on Thursday. The bad news: that was six shots off the lead, and it was anything but a routine 72 strokes around the course:

Daly had two double bogeys, a bogey and two birdies in a span starting on the 13th hole. The double bogey on the 16th came when the American's ball rolled down a hill twice. He was forced to hit out of a trap, sending rocks shooting out of the water.

"Just got some bad breaks. What can you do?" Daly asked. "I am hitting better than I am scoring."

Worse news: Daly fired another even-par round on Friday missing the 1-under cut by one stroke. On the bright side, he still holds the tournament record for lowest score: 27-under in 2001. So there's that. And Hooters.

Four days after quarterback Chris Simms said he feels like the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are holding him hostage, Bucs general manager Bruce Allen and coach Jon Gruden have fired back at Simms. Said Allen:

"I think his advisers pulled a PR stunt," Allen said. "I don't think it portrays Chris well. That's not the Chris I've talked to on the phone. But I can't worry about that. We have too many players who are trying to help this team win and those are the players we're going to focus on."

Said Gruden:

"I like Chris Simms. I don't necessarily agree with everything he said. But I'm going to coach the quarterbacks who are here. I am really excited about the guys who are here. I wish Chris and his situation well. But that's the last I'll address it. He made his statements and unfortunately that's all I can say. I like Jeff Garcia and I prefer talking about him, Brian Griese and Luke McCown at this point."

Chris Simms is under contract to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, but coach Jon Gruden hasn't made it a secret that he has no intention of ever putting Simms on the field in a Bucs uniform again. That puts Simms in an awkward situation, and he vented his frustrations in an interview with the St. Petersburg Times:

"I feel like I'm being held hostage,'' Simms said. "I hate that all this has happened. I love Tampa. My family loves it here. But I've been quiet long enough. I feel like it's time to let everybody know why I'm not out there.''

Simms said he knows for a fact that there were teams offering late-round draft picks to acquire him, and he's baffled that the Bucs didn't trade him. He also says the NFL forced him to be checked by a league-appointed doctor because it didn't think the team was telling the truth about his injuries.

But here's what I don't get: Why doesn't Simms just show up to off-season workouts and force the team's hand? Simms has a base salary of $2 million this year, and if he got hurt at the team facility the Bucs would have to pay it to him. By skipping workouts, Simms is actually helping the team hold him hostage.

Look, I get that Buccaneers coach Jon Gruden has an unhealthy obsession with geriatric quarterbacks, even the grumpy ones, but I really can't see this happening -- on this planet, anyway.

To paraphrase the Green Bay Gazette's Mike Vandermause, who's obviously due a drug test: Packers general manager Ted Thompson is looking forward (read: not talking about Brett Favre), but Favre will undoubtedly want to play, probably in 2008. Which means that if he's to return to the NFL, it'll have to be somewhere other than Green Bay.

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers might be just such a team. The Bucs were eliminated in the first round of the playoffs last season, so adding Favre could push them to Super Bowl-contending status. It doesn't hurt that Bucs coach Jon Gruden worked with Favre as an offensive assistant in Green Bay, or that Tampa Bay's offense would be somewhat familiar.

Would Thompson be willing to endure the public relations fallout? Then again, would Thompson be doing his job properly if he was offered a first-round draft choice and didn't seriously consider it?

A more relevant question: would Gruden be doing his job properly if he offered the Packers a first-round pick for a 39-year-old quarterback? (Answer: Hell. No.) Suspending reality long enough to assume this happens, there is a silver lining: according to Vandermause, "trading Favre could incite an angry mob, yet stranger things have happened." So that could be fun.

Wishful thinking, of course. Plus, Josh Johnson is the future in Tampa Bay. Just ask Chris Simms.

* small print

Hat tip: Shutdown Corner