Gruden seeks to end NFC South's topsy-turvy trend Jon Gruden spooned cubes of ice into his hot coffee at the NFC coaches breakfast Wednesday, never losing his cool. For more than an hour, the Bucs coach addressed an array of topics, from the surprising division title last season to the disappointing defeat in a home playoff game against the Giants and his optimism that first-to-worst trend in the NFC South could come to an end. "We won the division last year. We wrapped it up in Week??14 and to do that, you have to have some good players," he said. "We're hoping some of these guys are healthy and ready to roll. We would've loved to have Cadillac Williams and Luke Petitgout and a healthy (Joey) Galloway, a healthy Ike Hilliard, a healthy (Maurice) Stovall, a healthy Cato June for the playoffs. But guess what? We didn't have them. Tanard Jackson got hurt on the first play of the (Giants) game. Wish we'd have had those guys. "But to sit here and whine about it … hell, we've got it now. We've got them all coming back. That excites me, man. We've added seven or eight guys in free agency. I don't know how good they're going to do. … If Eugene Wilson comes on and splashes onto the scene, good for us. And if Ben Troupe or Antonio Bryant comes on for us … if Warrick Dunn is still the guy I think he is, we'll be better. That's what I'm excited about." Do you regret resting players the last two games of the season? I don't regret what we did, I regret how we finished. I regret the fact we got hurt. But that's football. Unfortunately, Joey (Galloway) wasn't ready to go in that game. He had one arm. If I regret anything it was playing him in that game because he obviously wasn't himself. Are you concerned about Jeff Garcia's ability to stay healthy for 16 games? It's the way he plays. It's the hits he takes. It's the fact that he doesn't care, he ain't changing. That's the question. I worry about him from the opening game until the end of the season. But I love him. I love the way he plays and it's a credit to him. … He's the Steve Nash of our football team. Do you think Chris Simms wants to play in Tampa Bay? It's a voluntary program so I don't monitor who's here and who's there. We've got (six) quarterbacks at this time under contract. He's one of them. And the great thing is he's healthy. If he volunteers to be there, we'll look forward to working with him. If he doesn't volunteer to be there, we'll work with the other quarterbacks. But he's under contract, we expect him to compete and it'll be competitive, that's for sure. … It's hard to accommodate everyone's wants and wishes. We paid him $7.5-million. If want to win, and he's part of our plans. … We want everybody to be happy, don't get me wrong. But we're going to keep our best quarterbacks, I promise you that. What do you think of signing Warrick Dunn? I look at the film of Warrick Dunn and he still had (720) yards rushing. He caught the ball effortlessly out of the backfield. And inside of him there's War Daddy. He's one of the great NFL men that we have in the league. You put him on the team and right away, you have Warrick Dunn. You know what I mean? And he is a threat to run it, catch it. He can pick up a blitz. And I love him. I mean, I've always liked this guy. We'll find something for Warrick to do, that's for sure. What did Brian Griese think of being traded to the Bucs? He gave me a hard time when I called him when we made the trade. He gave me a hard time. He's a sarcastic guy. Smart. Very sarcastic. I took a few punches from him, but he's glad to be back. What are you looking for in the draft? You'd like to just keep adding as much firepower as you can, a guy who can a big play, interceptions returned for a touchdown. Return a punt. Our return game, we'd like to pick that up. Rick Stroud, The St.Petersburg Times 4 April 2008