Gruden Landed Troupe With Strategic Recruiting, Taunting

In an interview with the Times, Ben Troupe discussed his time in Tennessee, his goals, and also how Jon Gruden convinced him to come to Tampa.

He made a couple of calls after kicking off the courtship. One came during Troupe's visit to Buffalo the week before he signed with Tampa Bay. It turned out the call was particularly well-timed.

"I got kind of fooled," Troupe said. "It was like 60 degrees the day that I got there. And then the next day, it was like 10.

"But the funny thing was when I got to the airport, Gruden had called me and left me a message. He said, 'I know you're in Buffalo. You don't want to go to Buffalo. I know I'm better competition. I'm looking out my window, and I see sunny skies.' ''

The interview doesn't mention the "Weather is here, wish you were beautiful" postcard that Gruden sent as a follow-up, but you know it happened. It's easy to sell the Florida weather in February and March when half of the league is dodging sleet or shoveling snow. I'll bet Gruden didn't mention the part about the 110 heat index at Disney in July in full pads while being screamed at by a horror movie icon.