No letdown in Tampa Bay
Bucs fired up to repeat as Super Bowl champs
Posted: Friday July 25, 2003 12:00 PM
This is the first in a series of postcards Peter King will e-mail from his annual NFL training camp tour.
Thursday, July 24
Team: Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Watching the Super Bowl champions at Disney's Wide World of Sports in Orlando, Fla., which has to be -- and I shouldn't get an argument on this -- the most interesting training-camp site in NFL history. In the gym complex where the Bucs dress, an AAU basketball tournament featuring teams from Missouri, California and New Jersey was being played. In the rooms where I interviewed Warren Sapp, Chris Simms and Brad Johnson, video machines were set up for AAU officials and coaches to analyze tournament games. On nearby fields, soccer and baseball games were being contested. And I thought: Bill Parcells could never train here. Good thing he didn't take this job.
Jon Gruden has a tin of Tommy Hilfiger peppermints in his camp bunker, the room where he game-plans practices.
I never knew Tommy made mints.
Maybe Altoids makes jeans.
Veteran WR Charles Lee. At 6-foot-3 and 227 pounds, he's the kind of big receiver Gruden likes, and he's the first name that rolled off Gruden's tongue when I asked about a surprise player this morning. Lee's a chippy, confident kid. He shoved a defensive end in the back in the morning practice, sort of a cheap shot, and Sapp got all over him. Lee yapped back. He may be leading the race for the fourth-receiver job.
1. Terry Kirby's in camp. I swear he's older than I am.
2. Nos. 20, 21 and 22 are all Virginia products: Ronde Barber, Kirby and Thomas Jones, respectively.
3. Jacquez Green is back. I don't like his chances to win a job with this team, but he sure should have some good Steve Spurrier stories to tell.
4. Some great first names here: Marvious [Hester], Than [Merrill], DeVone [Claybrooks], Ralf [Kleinmann], Hirchel [Bolden], Altroy [Bodrick], Shinzo [Yamada] and Idris [Price].
1. I think the Bucs are still worried about Jones' fumble-itis, just as the Cardinals always were. Jones put the ball on the ground the other day in a full-contact scrimmage, and Gruden was not pleased.
2. I think Joe Jurevicius will catch as many balls as Keyshawn Johnson this year, and more than Keenan McCardell.
3. I think the Bucs won't miss Dexter Jackson much. John Lynch looks very comfortable with converted corner Dwight Smith -- he of the two-interceptions-returned-for-TDs in the Super Bowl -- as his new free safety. This secondary won't miss a beat.
4. I think the defense won't, either. Man, were they hopping around a lot during the practice I saw. "I mean, where else would you rather be than with your guys playing ball?" Sapp told me, and he sounded pretty serious about it.
5. I think Sapp is playing his last year with the Bucs. Pressed to the wall, I think he'd tell you the same thing. He's a free agent after the season. He wants a couple of dollars, of course.
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Lunch in the Wide World of Sports press box this noon, catered by the Goodings grocery store people:
Entrée: Grilled chicken breast. Tasteless but nutritious and full of protein, I would hope. Grade: C+.
Sesame beef, marinated cucumber and lettuce in a whole wheat wrap. Now, I've never been a wrap fan. If I can't see into it, I'm not eating it. But here it was, and I thought I ought to give a wrap a try. Glad I did. Delicious. Perfectly cooked beef with some sort of Asian sauce, and wonderfully tasty cukes to go with it. Grade: B+.
Dessert: Big chocolate-chip cookie. Tsk, tsk. Terribly disappointing. Puffed up with flour, which is always a Toll House error (we didn't ask for cake), and full of some massive, gloppy, semisweet chips in the middle. A saltine would have been better. Grade: F.
Beverage: Dasani bottled water. It's no Evian, but it was cold, wet and much needed after being out in the central Florida broiler for a couple of hours. Grade: B.
Overall Grade: C. I suppose that's cruel, but I feel like the Canadian judge after the upstart Russian 15-year-old skates a nearly flawless long program. I can't give her a 5.8; I have to leave room for the studs to come. In this case, I have to leave room for the truly fine culinary experiences that lie ahead. |
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The Buc with a big ring who I'm happiest for today? Johnson. Most of us have counted him out a gazillion times because of neck and arm woes, and because quarterback-needy places like Washington tossed him away. Now he has earned the respect and admiration of Gruden -- that's not easy for a quarterback, believe me -- who last year was ready to hand Rob Johnson the starting job had the latter been more ready and more mature. Brad Johnson didn't care. He just competed every day and won the job in a landslide, then played one of the five best games of his life in the Super Bowl. That's something. And he's familiar with the history of the position. I like guys who know football history.
"Only eight quarterbacks have won [a Super Bowl] twice," he said after the morning practice, toweling himself off. "It's an elite class. You just don't fall into it. I gotta be the ninth. That's what I'm playing for."
I asked him if he notices even a smidge less desire from his Bucs early in camp.
"No," he said. "I probably see even more. I mean, for me, I want to win it even more this year because now I know what it feels like, and I know how bad it would feel not to get there again."
I was impressed with the Bucs' attitude and spirited play in practice. But there's one thing that worries me, and I'm sure it worries Gruden. Michael Pittman, that nutty accused abuser, has a pretrial hearing July 30 on charges of allegedly ramming his car into his wife's in May. Everyone here knows life could be ugly for the Bucs if Pittman is jailed -- if convicted, he faces a minimum mandatory five-year sentence -- or if his probation on a previous abuse conviction is revoked.
Thomas Jones, you might be the most important player in camp. Now that's a scary thought.
Denver Broncos, Denver
Check back soon for more of Peter King's Postcards from Camp.
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