‘Just Win, Baby’

SAN DIEGO — Three words.

The complexities of the first Super Bowl in which both teams were molded by the same man were described perfectly Tuesday in three words.

The mixture of regrets and renewal that fills that man, all in three words.

Jon Gruden, coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, was asked about his football philosophy.

“Just win, baby,” he said.

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With his gravy-lined football voice, he still sounds like an Oakland Raider.

With his fundamental preaching, he still acts like an Oakland Raider.

Trapped in a red and pewter jacket, he looks as miscast as a Hells Angel in corduroys, but make no mistake.

Jon Gruden is like seemingly everyone else who has fallen under the spell of the silk sweat suit.

Once a Raider, always a ...

“Yeah,” he admitted about his football philosophy, smiling but serious. “I stole that.”

In his first Super Bowl interview Tuesday, one day after snubbing the media and avoiding these questions, it was apparent that Gruden has taken much from the team he must now try to defeat for a championship.

One year with the good guys obviously has not been enough to rinse out four years with the bad guys.

He may have scraps of Raider game plans, but they still have a bit of his heart.

He can run from Al Davis, but he still can’t help quoting him?

His challenge this week is bigger than we thought.

“I’m not a real deep or philosophical guy,” Gruden said. “But I obviously have some emotions that will run deeply during the week at times.”

During the course of a one-hour media day chat, he showed just how deep.

His affected Southern accent softened when describing the oddness of leaving a team in the middle of the night with orders not to talk to any of the players.

“It’s hard, I guess,” he said. “Hopefully, down the road, I can play golf with some of those guys, talk to them, and all will be forgiven.”

His jaw loosened when told that last week in Oakland, his once-loyal fans loudly booed the mere mention of his name.

“I like the Raider Nation. I’m a big fan of the Black Hole,” he said. “When I see them on TV today, I still get goose bumps.”

He paused.

“But I’m sure they’re not happy. And they’re going to take it out on me.”

His quick patter slowed when reminded of how several Raiders are accusing him of abandonment.

He paused again.

“Years from now,” he said, “hopefully we can all be friends.”

The normally restless Gruden allowed two full bottles of water to remain untouched during the interview while twice protesting that the questions were finding his soft spots.

At one point he said, “This is getting too deep for me right now.”

He later added, “You guys are really killing me here.”

The Raiders, of course, will complain that it is Gruden who tried to kill them by leaving after bringing them to the brink of a championship.

Gruden claims they didn’t know the entire story, saying, “Some people have some of the information, some people have none of the information, and some people have all of the information.”

However, given the chance to enlighten everyone, he refused.

“I don’t want to get into it,” he said. “I was running out of time on a contract, we were unable to work it out, in the middle of the night I was traded, that’s how I get it.”

It was a bit more complex, however, with Gruden’s associates telling folks throughout last season that there was no chance he would re-sign with the Raiders when his contract expired this month.

Like virtually every coach who has worked for Al Davis, Gruden wanted the sort of freedom that the boss was unwilling to grant.

As with every coach, Davis figured Gruden was dispensable.

So, rather than lose him a year later for nothing, Davis decided to cut his losses and deal Gruden to the Buccaneers last February for four draft picks and $8 million.

The last time the two men have spoken was in the middle of that February night, when Davis phoned to tell him he was gone.

“There is no way I will ever be able to live up to the draft picks or whatever the compensation package was,” Gruden said. “We are still investigating. I think there is some swampland in Florida that was included in the deal.”

Definitely included was anger from the Raider players, their heads no doubt spun by a vengeful Raider front office.

This anger, which included Lincoln Kennedy’s recent charge that Gruden had a “Napoleonic complex” and wanted to “rule the world,” seemed to catch Gruden off guard.

“I have no bitterness. Maybe they do,” he said. “I heard Bill Parcells say one time that he is not for everybody, and I know that’s for sure with me too.”

But about Kennedy’s characterization of a Napoleonic complex?

“He’s right,” Gruden said with a smile. “He’s exactly right.”

So is this why Gruden became one of the first coaches in Super Bowl history to refuse to show up Monday for the first news conference, leading to Raider Coach Bill Callahan’s also backing out?

“That was not gamesmanship,” Gruden said. “We didn’t get home in our beds until three o’clock in the morning on Monday. I didn’t feel it gave our coaching staff, me included, any opportunity to preview the Raiders at all.

“We communicated with the league office. They communicated with Bill and his staff, maybe that was their gamesmanship.”

Gruden said he wasn’t trying to avoid the issue, because he didn’t think it should be an issue.

“Hopefully my situation is a sidebar, Page 19, lower right-hand column,” Gruden said, with a banner-headline sigh, and a front-page scowl.

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Bill Plaschke can be reached at [email protected]