Jeff Garcia Comments on Jon Gruden: Change Was Needed

Following Jon Gruden's exit from Tampa Bay, several players, including wide receiver Michael Clayton, spoke out with less-than-flattering words for their former head coach. The common theme seemed to be that Gruden would tell players one thing, and then turn around and do the exact opposite. I can see how that would be frustrating.

On Wednesday, quarterback Jeff Garcia became the latest player to pile on the former Bucs head coach when he said the team "needed the change."


Garcia, if you'll recall, was annoyed during the offseason when the Buccaneers, already possessing a plethora of quarterbacks, decided to dip their toes into the Brett Favre madness. Garcia called it a "very difficult time, very disappointing time."

More from Stephen Holder of the St. Petersburg Times (via WTSP):

"But the one thing that I always tried to look back on or reflect on was that I wasn't the first and I won't be the last. If it continues to be this way with players, it is going to get to a point where somebody who is above or in control will say 'Enough is enough.' I think that's what it got to. "There are players who were here in the past before I got here who had their own experiences of how they were treated or how they were misled. For the two years that I was here, I enjoyed my experiences on the field with coach Gruden but there were some things that obviously rubbed me wrong and I'm sure they were not easy to deal with. But I'm just one guy. Whatever the reason was that they made the change, they felt it was time to make the change."

I'm noticing a trend with Gruden's former players (some of them, anyway): they didn't trust him, or, if nothing else, thought he was a liar. That's probably not the best way to build a successful team in the NFL, which might explain, at least in part, why Tampa Bay hasn't won a playoff game since 2002.

Garcia was part of a revolving door at the quarterback position this season, and posted a 90.2 passer rating while completing nearly 65 percent of his passes. He struggled in the final two games of the season, and sat out the week 15 loss to Atlanta due to injury. He's currently a free agent, and is open to returning to Tampa Bay but admitted "the ball's not in my court – it's in theirs."