[SBR Lou]

Source

Chris Simms wants you to know that it's not about the city or the fans or the team's owners. His ongoing absence from "voluntary" offseason workouts, it's about just one thing - the head coach.

Though he respects his knowledge and deeply appreciates all that he's done for him as a player, the beleaguered Bucs quarterback said Monday that his relationship with Bucs coach Jon Gruden has been deteriorating for months and is now at a point where it is irreparably broken.

"It is totally broken," Simms said by phone from his New Jersey home, where he will be today when another round of workouts begin at One Buc Place. "And it kills me to say that, because the Bucs have been great to me; the fans have been great to me; I love being in Tampa; my family loves being in Tampa.

"It's an awesome sports town, a town that loves football. But the relationship between me and Coach Gruden - it's broken. It just is. And I don't see any way it's going to get better again."

The break, Simms said, began last year at training camp, where it quickly became obvious to most observers that Simms was struggling to regain his form following surgery to remove his spleen the previous September.

Simms said Gruden never fully acknowledged the impact of the injury and the subsequent surgery had on him and even went so far as to suggest it might have been something Simms was imagining or possibly making up.

"I do believe that he thought I might be faking it," Simms said. "I mean, he asked me, 'Is it in your head?' For him to say that, that's just not right. There are just a lot of things that I can never forgive him for."

Safe to say Simms won't be invited over to a Gruden cookout anytime soon.

[thegreatdiatchi]

He's a proven failure for them at this point. If the Bucs are smart they deal him for a low round pick and get the headache out of the locker room.

[slacker00]

Simms has some tread left on his tires. Maybe Miami, if Beck washes out early?

[Doc JS]

I'm sorry, but what exactly has Chris Simms won at either Texas or the NFL that should make us care what he has to say?

I obviously missed the memo about he was the reincarnation of Steve Young.

Doc

[Willie Bee]

Well, boo-flippin-hoo, little Chrissie Sims is having trouble with his boss. Yo Limosine (one of Sims' nicknames at U.T.), man up and learn to change your own diapers for once. It won't be long now that Major Applewhite is a head coach at some major university, so maybe he will have a job for you...likely picking up towels and washing dirty jockstraps after you and your family whined and moaned and undermined his collegiate career.

[slacker00]

Well, boo-flippin-hoo, little Chrissie Sims is having trouble with his boss. Yo Limosine (one of Sims' nicknames at U.T.), man up and learn to change your own diapers for once. It won't be long now that Major Applewhite is a head coach at some major university, so maybe he will have a job for you...likely picking up towels and washing dirty jockstraps after you and your family whined and moaned and undermined his collegiate career.

Wow, Willie, that sounds personal.

[SBR Lou]

Update.

TAMPA AP - Chris Simms may not have to wait much longer for the release he wants from the Bucs.

Armed with a league-issued mandate to reduce their roster to 80 players by the start of training camp, the Bucs already have begun the process of purging players.

Patrick Chukwurah, a reserve linebacker/defensive lineman and special teams player, was among the first to be let go Thursday.

Marquis Gunn, a first-year defensive lineman out of Auburn, also was released.

The Bucs will need to cut at least eight more players between now and the July 26 start of camp workouts. Whether Simms will be among those let go remains uncertain, but the chances have increased as a result of the mandate.

With rosters limited to 80 players - at least eight less than they were allowed to have in years past - teams are being forced to make difficult personnel decisions sooner than ever before.

One such decision to be made by the Bucs revolves around the number of quarterbacks the team will take to camp.

The Bucs had hoped to take five but the mandate may force them to take four.

"We're going to have to make some tough decisions," Coach Jon Gruden said. "When the rookies sign, they obviously have to have room on the roster to come to camp, so there are some tough decisions to make.

"And it's emotional for me, because maybe you haven't seen these guys out here in April, May and June, but they've been out here working hard. You'd like to afford them an opportunity to benefit from the hard work."

Chukwurah, who signed with the Bucs as a free agent in the spring of 2007, is coming off a season in which his workload was greatly limited by a shoulder injury.