Gruden to Bucs: “I’m taking QBs with me”

TAMPA, FL — In the wake of his surprising and much-ballyhooed firing from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, longtime NFL head coach Jon Gruden has served notice to his former team that he doesn’t intend to leave empty-handed.

“They want to fire me out of nowhere? Fine, that’s their prerogative,” an angry and hurt Gruden told SSNN. “But I’m taking my quarterbacks with me – every damn one of them.”

Gruden, who has been known throughout his career for stockpiling quarterbacks on his team’s rosters, went on to name the four signal-callers that he intends to take from Tampa — Josh Johnson, Luke McCown, Jeff Garcia and Brian Griese.

“Well I’m not sure exactly how Jon thinks this whole process works, but those guys are actually under contract with the Buccaneers franchise,” Bucs owner Malcom Glazer said. “Although to tell you the truth, he can take McCown and Griese. But we definitely want Josh Johnson, and it probably can’t hurt to keep Garcia around.”

But the disgruntled former coach insists he will do “everything in his power to retain personal ownership rights” over all four quarterbacks. What exactly he intends to do with them is far less clear.

“Hell, with a few good quarterbacks you can do just about anything,” Gruden assured SSNN. “If I want to go coach somewhere else, then I’ve got a nice little bonus to bring along with me – four quarterbacks, at least one of whom is a potentially legitimate NFL player. Otherwise maybe I’ll just start my own team, and lord knows I’ve started with worse foundations than four middling QBs.”

Today’s sudden firing of Gruden and Bucs GM Bruce Allen came as a shock to many NFL insiders, who considered both to be safe in their job after a 2002 Super Bowl Championship and playoff appearances in both 2005 and 2007. But the Glazer family ran out of patience after a late-season swoon saw Tampa Bay lose their last four games and miss the playoffs.

“This is a bottom line business, and the bottom line is that we feel Jon has underachieved with this team,” said Bryan Glazer, a key member of his father’s front office staff. “If he wants to take a quarterback or two as a severance package, I suppose we can probably work something out. After all, when we get a normal head coach in here he won’t need a million QBs sitting around.

“But I have to be honest – the combined value of Griese and McCown is probably less than the cash settlement we were planning to give him.”

It’s going to be tough for this sport to sweep any nations, but it’s still pretty frickin’ cool!