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Bucs/NFL

Shelve the shrillness with Simms

By GARY SHELTON
Published September 24, 2006

From where the quarterback stands, the pressure looks fierce.

From there, you can see the crazed eyes of a man desperate to get into his face. From there, you can see his body twist and contort the same way his features do. From there, you can feel the heat of his passion and the sound of his fury.

Yep, that Jon Gruden sure is a good pass-rusher, isn't he?

With every game, almost with every series, it is becoming the snapshot of a season. Chris Simms screws up, and Gruden chews him out, and Simms rescrews, and Gruden rechews, and so it goes. Simms is in danger of being the first quarterback in NFL history to go on the injured reserve list with a blistered face.

Here at third and winless, two things seem evident when it comes to the Bucs:

No, it is not time to make a change at quarterback.

Yes, it is time to make a change with the quarterback.

In a season that has turned into the time of the boiled blood, on the sideline has turned into the land of the popped cork, it is time for Gruden to lower the volume. It is time to mix a little calm into the chaos. It is time for a little temperance instead of temper.

In other words, it is time to try a little tenderness.

More and more, the snapshot of Gruden in Simms' face has become the national image of the Bucs. In an online article written by ESPN's Chris Mortensen last week, several anonymous NFL administrators and coaches chided the way Gruden has handled Simms. "A clinic in how to break a quarterback's confidence," one of them said.

I know, I know. Simms has been awful for two games, and Gruden is frustrated. A coach entrusts his club to a kid and he believes in him so much that he does not bring in alternatives, then he, by gum, expects better than six interceptions and three points in two games.

Besides, Gruden is a coach, a profession where the battle cry is this: When all else fails, you yell. Lombardi yelled. Shula yelled. Ditka yelled. Parcells yells. The way Simms has played, Gandhi might yell at him, too.

If you are Gruden, you would probably say that your volume will go down as soon as Simms' quarterback rating goes up. Once the defense stops batting passes back into Simms' face, he'll stop batting Simms' decisions in the same direction.

But there is another dictum to coaching, too. It is a profession where a simple question accompanies every decision: Is this helping the situation or hurting it?

At this point, it ain't helping.

Watch Simms and suddenly, he seems hesitant, cautious. Even when he completes a pass, it often seems to come late. It is the look of a quarterback afraid to make a mistake.

Most coaches will tell you that some players respond to a pat on the back and some respond to a kick in the pants and that the tricky part is telling the difference. Hey, if all it took to coach was a little screaming and a little profanity, teams wouldn't be playing for the Vince Lombardi trophy; they'd be playing for the Sam Kinneson award.

In two games, however, we have seen Gruden rant and rave, and we have seen him twist and contort. We have seen him shake his head and roll his eyes. Put it to music, and you have an Aerosmith video.

What we have not seen is Simms play better. Remember the way he was berated during the Ravens game? If yelling helped, wouldn't he have been a star against the Falcons? If yelling helped, wouldn't Louis Gossett Jr. have turned Richard Gere into a great quarterback in An Officer and a Gentleman?

Again, it's easy to understand Gruden's frustration. Around here, it used to vex the dickens out of people that Tony Dungy didn't seem to have any at all. In those days, you would have paid an extra seat deposit to see Dungy yell at Trent Dilfer. Because he didn't, it required that the rest of us did it for him.

I know, Jon. I know. I have kids, too, and they lack experience, and from time to time, they soil the bed. And the temptation is to yell louder than you yelled last time. But the rule is that the louder the volume, the easier it is to tune out.

On the other hand, maybe President Bush didn't stop by practice to visit. Maybe he needed a little advice on how to yell at his generals.

Of course, Simms knows the way it works. He's been here for a while. Not only that, Simms grew up in a locker room where, from time to time, Parcells said something to his dad that didn't involve flowers and candy. A quarterback can't complain about being scolded. If he can't handle the heat from his own coaches, how is he ever going to handle a blitzing linebacker?

Over the years, I've seen a lot of coaches yell at a lot of quarterbacks. (And a few writers - Don Shula once left second-degree burns on my forehead). Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't.

In other words, coaching is about adjustments. You tinker with a playbook to fit the player. You alter a game plan to fit a situation. And with a quarterback, you decide when to bless and when to blame.

Let me repeat: No one is saying that Gruden should raise his hand whenever he wants to talk to Simms. No one is suggesting that Gruden tiptoe up and whisper: "Excuse me, Chris. About that pass you threw to the guy in the black jersey? Chris, I should point out that we're wearing white today."

If you have been around Gruden, you know that he is going to yell. It's his nature. It just seems that it should come in smaller portions, and that sometimes, he does a bit of nurturing, too.

For now, at least, the coach and the quarterback are in this mess together, and the only chance of getting out is each other. It would be nice if Gruden could let Simms know that, despite the bad play, he still believes in him, he still trusts him. Also, it would be nice for Simms to show that he deserves it.

From here, it's hard to say how a coach gets his team out of the cellar.

I'm pretty sure, though, that he doesn't shout it out.

[Last modified September 24, 2006, 02:05:49]