Keyshawn Johnson on his time with Jon Gruden: ‘He’s a bad guy. And he’s a fraud.'

Flashback time. It was 2003, early in the season. I’m sitting in the front passenger seat of Keyshawn Johnson’s car, parked outside the Tampa Bay Buccaneers complex that players call “One Buc Place.”

We talked for roughly an hour after practice, in what was at the time, largely an off-the-record conversation. The star receiver on a team defending a Super Bowl championship, Johnson vented hard about his relationship with his coach, Jon Gruden, and told me that he had reached a point of no return.

He wanted out. Johnson had just put his house on the market, despite having several years remaining on the eight-year, $56 million extension that made him the NFL’s highest-paid receiver.  

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