Hilliard Wants You To Lay Off Of Gruden

This is an old story, but it's kind of hard to bring myself to read Rick Stroud, so it sat in my inbox for a few days.

As other locker rooms in the NFC South start to degenerate into something resembling ant piles without a queen, the Bucs seem to be pulling together in a way not unlike the 2002 season. Take Ike Hilliard, for example, who sticks up for his coach and puts the blame for the four losses on the players.

"We sat here and wrapped maybe 148 carted blitzes (for the Cardinals), and we prepare for every team in that fashion. People need to get off Coach [Jon] Gruden a little bit. He's done a great job of preparing us every week. It's just a shame on us for being 5-4 because it should be a lot better than that."

No divisiveness, no malcontents, no finger-pointing. It's all running pretty smoothly over at One Buc, which is what the rest of the article kind of says. It's nice to read something positive in the press for a change, but it comes across as insincere when it happens nine games into the season. The title of the article shows how Stroud really feels. It questions what else Gruden has to do to keep his job, but never attempts to answer that in the content. The implication is that he still hasn't done enough. Quit trying to fool us into thinking you're on the bandwagon, Stroud. We know you.