Shuffling Out of Buffalo

The meeting was brief, the request bizarre. Tampa Bay Coach Jon Gruden didn’t ask Rob Johnson to throw a pass or even set foot on the football field. A stack of videotapes told Gruden everything he needed to know. Well, almost everything.

“He asked me to lift my shirt to see my abs,” said Johnson, 29. “He’s just crazy like that. He wanted to see how hard I’ve worked.”

Johnson was happy to oblige, and, apparently, Gruden was sufficiently impressed. The Buccaneers promptly signed him to a one-year, $650,000 deal. He’s now competing for the starting quarterback job with incumbent Brad Johnson and Shaun King, and Gruden has raved about the former USC standout.

Keeping up his washboard abs has never been a problem for Johnson; he simply didn’t have the stomach to stay in Buffalo.

Actually, the decision was mutual. The Bills wanted to renegotiate the final season of his five-year, $25-million contract. He didn’t want to take a pay cut--and didn’t want to stay in Buffalo, anyway--so he felt relieved when the team released him.

“I wanted out a year before that,” he said, referring to when the Bills were weighing whether to keep him or Doug Flutie. “When they were dragging the process out, I called them and said, ‘Listen, I don’t want to be there. If this is that tough of a decision for you, let me go.’ But when they said they wanted to keep me, I wanted to be there.”

In the end, the situation was toxic. The knocks on Johnson were plenty--he was too indecisive with the football, always searching for the big play; he was too brittle, having suffered 13 injuries in four seasons with the Bills, including a broken collarbone that kept him out of eight games in 2001; and he was a sack magnet, dragged down an average of once every seven plays last season. Then, there were the whispers that he would rather risk his body by taking a sack than risk his passer rating by throwing away the ball. Those accusations have haunted him since college.

Some of his numbers are impressive. In four seasons with the Bills, Johnson had the franchise’s best completion percentage (60.5) and its lowest interception percentage (2.56). But he was 10-17 as a starter, including 1-7 last season. Regardless, some Tampa Bay insiders believe he will wind up as the Buccaneers’ starting quarterback.

“The thing about Rob is, people think he’s some kind of reclamation project,” said John Lynch, Tampa Bay’s Pro Bowl safety who has known Johnson since Lynch played at Stanford. “Shoot, Rob’s been a productive quarterback in this league. He took a team to the playoffs. There was some controversy because of the Flutie thing, and last year he was on a bad football team. So he’s had some tough circumstances. But he’s a talented player.”

Folks in Buffalo saw Johnson as a California surf punk straight out of central casting, more GQ than QB. He is quick to point out he has only surfed once this year and says he’s as dedicated as anyone in the game.

“I think [that image] hurt in Buffalo,” he said. “My family’s from Pittsburgh, my mom was born in Buffalo, but they just see surfer guy. Just because I live in California. It’s kind of a stereotype. They believed the perceptions and didn’t try to see that I worked hard.”

The Buccaneers are giving him a chance to reboot his career. He and workmanlike Brad Johnson are sharing reps with the No. 1 offense at training camp, and, although Brad is still penciled in as the starter, no one doubts that Rob is making a hard push for the job.

Gruden, who has built a career around his ability to mold quarterbacks, sees untapped potential in Rob, who is very mobile and has first-class arm strength.

“I’ll be the first to say I like this guy,” said Gruden, who helped Rich Gannon go from a sturdy, part-time starter with Kansas City to a Pro Bowl quarterback for Oakland. “I see something in this guy. Brad’s our starter, but Rob’s a guy we think a lot of.”

The Buccaneers are holding training camp at DisneyWorld, and thousands of fans gather at the sports complex each day to watch practices. They roared with approval last week when Rob hummed spiral after spiral to his new teammates. Gruden has rebuilt the notoriously underwhelming offense, adding players such as receiver Keenan McCardell and tight ends Ken Dilger and Marco Battaglia. And, of course, Rob Johnson is a big part of that.

“Being through what I’ve been through, you respect your playing time a lot more,” Johnson said. “You realize that it’s very fragile. You can get replaced at any second. So a sense of urgency has come over me. I want to play now, and I don’t want to get hurt again.”

Time will tell if Johnson can redefine his career the way Gannon did, whether he’s devoted enough to do so. Gannon was so dedicated, he was given a key to the Raider facility so he could watch videotape before sunrise.

“I don’t know if Rob’s there yet,” Gruden said. “God knows if he’s up at 6 a.m. But I’m trying to stimulate him where he feels the urgency to be just like that.”