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Gruden Silent On Simms Matter

Posted Jun 10, 2008 by Roy Cummings

Updated Jun 10, 2008 at 02:35 PM

TAMPA - A lot of Buccaneers were talking about what Chris Simms had to say about Coach Jon Gruden on Tuesday. Gruden wasn’t one of them.

Gruden calmly denied my request to speak on the matter, saying, “No, not today.’‘

No surprise there. Gruden is not mandated to speak after every off-season workout, and with this being a real hot-button topic he probably wants to take some to formulate a response.

While Gruden remained silent, though, others spoke. None expressed any surprise at Simms comments, but most said it was simply a personal matter between Simms and the coach and wasn’t unlike a lot of other situations they’ve encountered in the past.

“Everybody’s entitled to his own opinion,’’ WR Ike Hilliard said when asked about Simms comments. “We’d like everybody to be here, because we’re all teammates and we all love him but we’ll see what happens going forward.’‘

“You just have let it go and go about doing your own job,’’ WR Michael Clayton said. “As players our job is to work hard and do our part. We have to stay away from injuries and let whatever happens happen.’‘

In other Bucs news, there has been a settlement in the Jake Plummer case, and Plummer has come out the loser. A day before he would have gone to a hearing on the matter he agreed to give back half of the $7 million signing bonus he got when he signed his last contract with the Broncos.

That money doesn’t go to the Broncos, though; it goes to the Bucs. They won the rights to it when they traded for Plummer last offseason. The fact that Plummer never played a down for them doesn’t matter. When players voluntarily fail to play out their entire contract, they run the risk of being asked to give back some of the bonus money they received upon signing that contract. That’s what happened with Plummer.

The money the Bucs get in this case will be applied to next year’s salary cap. That may seem like a big deal, but keep in mind that the Bucs had $45 million worth of cap space at the start of the current off-season and have sat on most of it. So what did the Bucs really achieve in all this? Well, they got about $3.5 million for a seventh-round draft pick. That’s not bad. You’ve got to think, though, that they’d much rather have the player. That, though, was never going to happen.

Reader Comments

Por (Jamie) on June 10, 2008 (Suggest removal)

Thanks for the update, Roy. Unlike a lot of other a-holes that reply here, I enjoy reading your updates. They keep reading even though they keep complaining. If they were really dissatisfied, they would not even be responding.