Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Bucs/NFL

'Do you understand?'

By GARY SHELTON
Published August 3, 2006

LAKE BUENA VISTA - Grad school was in session, and once again, the teacher was upset.

Jon Gruden was yelling, the way he often is, and the heat of the morning had nothing on the fire in his voice. A couple of feet away, Bruce Gradkowski was getting an earful, the way he often is.

It had been a simple enough play, really. All Gradkowski had to do was hand the ball to Cadillac Williams and stay out of the way. Unless, of course, the defense blitzed right into Williams' intended path, which, of course, is what happened. Gradkowski didn't recognize it, and he didn't audible, and now, in that drop-a-large-hammer-on-it voice of his, Gruden was pointing it out.

"I don't like dents in my Cadillac," Gruden bellowed. "You put a dent in my Cadillac and you're gonna be driving a Pinto back in Ohio. You hear me?"

Ah, the education of a football player.

What a gentle and magical thing it is.

Say this much for Gradkowski, the 23-year-old rookie quarterback of the Bucs. He seems fairly soundproof. Otherwise, the volume of Gruden's voice might have melted his skull by now. Gruden, as you might have heard, can be demanding, and his blend of passion and profanity can widen the eyes and blister the face of a young quarterback. A rookie might as well spend six weeks inside a loudspeaker on a Metallica tour as make the odd mistake in front of Gruden.

Yet, Gradkowski keeps smiling and keeps nodding, and Gruden keeps raising his voice, and behind it all, the rest of the Bucs keep grinning at the entertainment.

Say hello to Tampa Bay's next cult figure. Gradkowski is raw and reckless, and he is a long way from taking over a huddle, but there is a charisma to the way the guy plays quarterback. Considering the team's lack of depth at quarterback, Bucs fans might spend a lot of the preseason watching Gradkowski play. Gruden has already.

"I love him," Gruden said. "I do. I don't want to say it too many times, but I like the magic this guy has about him. If you watched him play in the big games (while at Toledo), he rises to the occasion. He likes the kitchen hot. He likes the competition."

That said, there are also times when Gruden seems particularly vexed by Gradkowski. Playing quarterback in the NFL is like learning to read upside down, and when a coach has a playbook as thick as Gruden's, it's as if the pages are written in Sanskrit. Of course Gradkowski is going to make mistakes; it's what rookies do. Of course Gruden is going to rant; it's what coaches do.

Take the other day, when Gruden was yelling instructions into Gradkowski's face. Gruden's voice was set for, say, 40 yards, when Gradkowski was, oh, 2 feet away, but no one bothered to bring up the discrepancy.

"Do you understand?" Gruden said. "Do you understand? Do you understand?"

Gradkowski nodded, and nodded again, and again.

Finally, Gruden had seen enough. "What are you, a bobblehead doll? Do you just smile and nod at whatever you hear?"

And so it goes. But the thing is, Gradkowski isn't bothered a bit by the criticism. It is a hidden ability of a quarterback, that gift of being able to sort through the volume and find the message within. Hey, Gradkowski's father yelled at him all the time when he was in youth sports, and he says he was more afraid of his mother than of his father. Tough love isn't new to him.

"I have unbelievable respect for Coach Gruden," Gradkowski said. "It gets pretty serious out there. But the guys on the other side of the ball aren't going to go out there to be nice to me on Sundays. That's what he's trying to do. He's trying to get me ready to go out there where they're going to try to rip my head off."

One of the players who enjoys the outburst as much as anyone is Chris Simms, simply because he used to be a co-star in the activity. Once, Simms said, Gruden was so miffed at him that Gruden compared him to "warm (urine) running down my leg."

As for Gradkowski, there is much to learn. He played college ball at Toledo, where he spent most of his time in the shotgun. It's a big leap to the NFL.

"For a rookie to come in here and take 33 to 34 percent of the reps, that's new for me," Gruden said. "I think he's doing a hell of a job.

"But in the process, there has to be an urgency, a crisis. He has to get this down today. We're not redshirting him.

"He understands. (A player) doesn't have to be an idiot. The only reason he's getting these reps is that somebody thinks he's pretty good. But after Simms has a clean set of nine plays, don't think you're going to come in here and bring things to a screeching halt, okay? We have a 105-degree heat index here. The longer he takes spitting the plays out, the longer we sweat. So get the tempo right.

"It's a different game, man. They don't stop the clock, they don't reset the yard markers, they don't take a coffee break after every first down like they do in college. The referees wind it quick and you're off and running."

Gradkowski is catching up. He is "light years" ahead of where he was in the spring, back when Gruden became so upset with him he walked away yelling, "Get him out of here. Just get him out of here. Tell him to go play pingpong or something."

Wednesday morning, for instance, the two stood under a goal post, talking about football and the way knowledge accumulates from drill to drill and day to day. Along with his amplification, Gruden has an appreciation for Gradkowski, a hope that someday a player will develop who can make plays with his legs as well as his arms.

Gradkowski hopes for that, too. He set an NCAA record by completing 68.2 percent of his passes. Like most college quarterbacks, he enters the NFL with full confidence that he will succeed here, too. He describes his style of play as being "a bad dude out there on the field."

First, though, comes knowledge.

"He has to keep his foot to the gas pedal," Gruden said. "Playing quarterback isn't about icing your arm, spitting the plays out and completing a few passes. It's about going back to your dorm, seeing the tape and relentlessly looking at ways I could have done better."

Someday, maybe it all sinks in. Someday, maybe Gradkowski grows into one of those late-round successes, like Tom Brady or Brad Johnson. Someday, maybe he will succeed.

If he does, Gruden will yell over that, too.

[Last modified August 3, 2006, 05:25:08]