FAB 5. SR’s Buc Shots

• Many people remember the outcome of Jon Gruden’s first season in Tampa Bay as the Buccaneers went 12-4 and won Super Bowl XXXVII in 2002. But, sometimes what is lost is what it took to get there. I spoke to Gruden about the surreal experience of being traded for and leaving Oakland in the middle of the night and becoming the head coach of the Bucs on February 19, 2002.

Not only did Gruden not arrive in Tampa Bay until a full four weeks – four weeks! –after most new NFL head coaches are hired, he didn’t bring any former assistant coaches with him from the Raiders. I talked about his first year in Tampa Bay and the hectic pace he had to operate on to be prepared for the start of the 2002 season.

ESPN’s Jon Gruden and Scott Reynolds – Photo by: Trevor Sikkema/PR

“I’ll never forget when we hired Richard Mann, Stan Parrish, Bill Muir, Kirby Wilson and all these guys,” Gruden said. “We didn’t even know what the snap count was or what we’re calling a split backfield or how we’re identifying defenses. Let alone, start studying the people that were in our division because we were in the NFC South. We didn’t have a lot of film of our teams playing against those opponents. Putting an offense in and having the coaches being able to teach it, I can’t begin to tell you how many nights we spent over there at One Buccaneer Place drawing up plays and erasing them. ‘Let me hear you do it, and you do it, and you do it.’ [We did that] over and over again.”

Almost immediately after arriving at One Buccaneer Place, Gruden had to dive into free agency without knowing much about the talent on Tampa Bay’s existing roster.

“Then we had to host free agents,” Gruden said. “I had to give Ken Dilger a 50 percent off Hooters card to get the deal done. Rickey Dudley gets cut by the Raiders and I had to fight Rich McKay to get him signed. Keenan McCardell, we had to take him to Raymond James Stadium for a red zone practice and fire the cannons off every time we scored. We had to do everything we could to sign that guy. My lips are still chapped from kissing Joe Jurevicius’ butt on his visit. There is a lot that went into that.”

Not only did Gruden have to hire offensive assistant coaches and special teams coordinator Rich Bisaccia, he also had to keep the existing defensive assistant coaches from leaving for Indianapolis to follow Tony Dungy, who was fired on January 14.

“You come off the plane from Oakland and you don’t have any coaches that you’ve ever worked with,” Gruden said. “Then I got [Rod] Marinelli, [Mike] Tomlin and Joe Barry – they wanted to go to the Colts with Tony. I said, ‘Nah, you guys are staying here. I got blocked before. You’re getting blocked.’ And they weren’t happy about that. You had to earn people’s trust. There were rumors that [Warren] Sapp was going to be traded, yet he was the first guy that walked in. Keyshawn [Johnson] doesn’t want to show up [for practices] and you had to deal with that and get him in here. Then you have to go through the draft and you don’t have a first- or second-round pick. That ain’t fun. Then you let Warrick Dunn go. That still pisses me off. We had to get rid of eight or nine starters to be honest with you. Donnie Abraham, Jamie Duncan – a lot of good football players. There was a lot that went into that. But it was exciting to be a part of the result.”

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• I asked Gruden who was the most underrated player he coached in Tampa Bay. Without hesitation he named “The Bull.”

“Brad Johnson,” Gruden said. “You’ve got to remember this. I’m going to be the last coach in the history of the world to win a Super Bowl that never took a snap from shotgun. We didn’t take one snap from the shotgun all year. That will never happen again – ever. Most teams can’t go an opening series without doing it. That’s how much the game has changed. I came from Bill Walsh and Mike Holmgren and the West Coast [offense]. You don’t do the shotgun.

“Brad Johnson loved the shotgun. He kept asking, ‘What are we doing? Can we put it in?’ But he never complained. He never complained once. That guy got hit a lot. Not a lot of people know, but who led the NFC in passing efficiency that year? Brad Johnson, who caught fire late in the year. This guy was great against the 49ers, great against Philadelphia and great in the Super Bowl. I wish I had him five years earlier.”

• PewterReport.com is excited to announce that we’re continuing our popular Training Camp Diaries series again this year. This year’s veteran is misunderstood safety Chris Conte, while the rookie is buzzworthy wide receiver Chris Godwin. Conte’s Training Camp Diary debuts Friday morning on PewterReport.com, while Godwin’s Training Camp Diary debut will take place on Saturday.

• Gruden is a big fan of new Tampa Bay wide receiver DeSean Jackson, and he offered up some unique insight. Gruden’s brother, Jay Gruden, is the head coach of the Washington Redskins and coached Jackson for the past three years.

“There are some people that are concerned about if he’ll practice all the time,” Gruden said. “Will he run an inside route? Will he block? What are the reasons he’s going on his third team? We have to get him to buy in to being a part of practice all the time and dealing with heat. It’s different. [Joey] Galloway cramped up every game. It used to drive me crazy. Hopefully [Jackson] doesn’t have that problem.”

• If you haven’t had the chance to listen to the latest Pewter Nation Podcast make sure you don’t miss it as it features Bucs safety Keith Tandy as our special guest, live from Ford’s Garage in Brandon, Fla. The mild-mannered Tandy surprised the PewterReport.com staff when he revealed that he was the best trash talker in the secondary.

Tandy also told us that he called his own shot and predicted that he was going to pick off Drew Brees on fourth-and-1 to seal Tampa Bay’s 16-11 victory over New Orleans. Click here to listen to Tandy break down that play and talk about the 2017 Buccaneers as they head into training camp.

• And finally, the Bucs will make their debut on HBO’s Hard Knocks series on August 8, which will give Tampa Bay some national exposure ahead of the 2017 regular season. I asked Gruden if he considered having any of his Bucs teams on Hard Knocks, knowing that big personalities like Warren Sapp, Keyshawn Johnson and Simeon Rice would have been the stars of the show.

“[Former NFL Films producer] Steve Sabol was a good friend of mine,” Gruden said. “He asked three or four years for us to do it. Every year I said there ain’t no way we’re doing it. Hard Knocks is not for me. I’m not a guy that would open up like that. That’s not my deal.

“At training camp I was always very protective of our football team. I think conversations that you have at training camp … that’s a time where I thought we would go to Orlando and bond together and introduce our rookies and our new free agents and come together. You don’t want to put that on live remote broadcast, man. That’s not me, but it would have been funny – certainly. That would have been hilarious, probably.”