Jon Gruden Help Quotations

For us to sign Chris Simms for our future is something that is extremely exciting. (He is) A young man that has continued to improve, help our team make the playoffs and win an NFC Southern Championship, and a guy that we will continue to build our football team around.

He's a very popular guy on this team and well thought of. He's been here a long time, ... He's got a lot of close friends on the team and on the staff and in the organization. I'm sure he's getting a lot of support from people. It's very unfortunate. He's not the only one that's had to go through this and we just try to help him the best we can.

He'll continue to be with the team and help our young quarterbacks, and hopefully come back bigger and stronger and better than ever next year.

I thought he did some good things. He will help our team. He gives us a dimension that we need here.

And when you put him together with Michael Clayton and Alex Smith and Barrett Ruud and Dan Buenning and rookie tackle Chris Colmer, well, you feel you've got guys who can help you turn things around here.

The schedule doesn't get any easier, ... Our job is to do everything we can to help him. His job is obviously to make plays and move this football team and help us score and win games, and eliminate turnovers, negative plays, sacks. Those are areas that must be cleaned up in a hurry. And he'll be the quarterback this week again. Hopefully he can do that.

What happened last year is not going to hurt us or help us in any way. We realize we have our hands full. We're going to get on a plane and we'll go and we'll play any place, be it the Vet or on the Walt Whitman Bridge.

Not necessarily. We really worked hard on the draft the last couple years, being a part of it, so we know a lot of the players that are on the waiver wire from our research, ... And we know a lot about our players that didn't make this team also. Not necessarily, but familiarity can help you, you bet, when it's close.

Hey, what do you see out there that can help me get you the ball more?

They've played in the league. They're affordable. They have experience. They help in the meeting room. And if they have to go in the game, they usually won't screw things up.

There's a lot of things that entered into this decision to bring him to Tampa. He's got a lot to prove. He's got to get it right. Hopefully, this is an opportunity for him to do it. The stage is set for him to be successful. If he can do that, we're going to look for him to help us. If he can't do that, then it's not going to be a very long-lasting relationship. We'll see what happens.