Long journey to Bucs' lineup for Johnson

TAMPA, Fla. – Josh Johnson's(notes) journey to become starting quarterback of the 0-3 Tampa Bay Buccaneers is a little beyond the road less traveled.

It's a flight plan.

Those were the days – when Johnson played for the University of San Diego, a Roman Catholic school that sits atop a hill overlooking the city's Mission Valley district and plays Division I-AA football in the Pioneer Football League.

Pioneer would be an understatement. Lewis and Clark might have had it easier.

Johnson relieved Leftwich against the Giants last weekend.

(Kim Klement/US Presswire)

USD's closest rival is Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, which is 1,741 miles away by car and about 1,500 by airplane (assuming there is no connection between San Diego and Des Moines). San Diego's supposed archrival is Dayton, in Ohio, which doesn't exactly qualify as any type of turf war. Most of the schools in the conference, such as Davidson, Jacksonville and Marist, are in the Eastern time zone.

"It was a lot of long trips," said Johnson, shaking his head slightly at the memory.

In some ways, Johnson did that by choice. After Johnson went largely unrecruited out of Oakland Tech High in California (he started his senior season at 5-foot-11 and grew to 6-3 in college), former USD coach Jim Harbaugh was talking him up by his sophomore season.

"He told the media, 'Josh Johnson could be playing in the Pac-10; he's better than [2006 Heisman Trophy winner] Troy Smith(notes) and Brady Quinn,' "(notes) Johnson said, still a little sheepish about Harbaugh's big talk. Harbaugh, who's now at Stanford, took it a step farther: He offered to help Johnson transfer to a bigger school.

"He told me, 'If you want to go to a Pac-10 school, a bigger school, I'll help you,' " Johnson said. "I told him, 'That's OK, I'm comfortable here.' I wanted to see that through at San Diego."

Johnson's father, Gordon, said Cal and Stanford (after Harbaugh took the job there in 2007) sniffed around to see if Johnson might leave USD. Both times, Johnson didn't give it a second thought.

"I think he gets that loyalty from both me and his mother," said Gordon Johnson, a man who for seven years has commuted 160 miles a day through San Francisco's Bay Area traffic and over the Santa Cruz Mountains to coach men's basketball at Division III UC Santa Cruz. "We were both good athletes and we both believed that you should be around people who wanted you in the first place. Be loyal to the people who came after you in the first place, who valued having you, who wanted you."

Johnson survived the long flights and the snubs along the way to become the Bucs' starter this Sunday against the Washington Redskins. In truth, Johnson is starting partly out of necessity. His mobility is a functional answer to what ails the Tampa Bay offense after losing center Jeff Faine(notes). Without Faine to protect the middle and help trigger the running game that was so effective in the season opener against the Dallas Cowboys, immobile veteran Byron Leftwich(notes) has become football's version of a goldfish in a piranha tank.

"It's in the best interest of the team right now to have a mobile quarterback out there," said Tampa Bay offensive coordinator Greg Olson. "By his own admission, Byron is not the fastest guy out there … and we weren't protecting him well enough."

But the bigger picture is that Faine's injury only hit the fast-forward button on the Bucs' ultimate plan for this year. The idea has long been to get Johnson, a fifth-round NFL draft pick in 2008, playing time this season. The same applies to '09 first-rounder Josh Freeman(notes). One way or another, the Buccaneers are going to develop a young quarterback after patching the position with one 30-something passer after another under former coach Jon Gruden.

While Gruden was part of the regime that drafted Johnson, the truth is that Gruden had about as much appreciation for young passers as most people have for portable toilets – you use them only when truly necessary. During Gruden's seven years with the team, the highest pick the Bucs used on a quarterback was a third-rounder in 2003 to get Chris Simms(notes).

Even that was a mess. After former personnel men Tim Ruskell and Rich McKay selected Simms late on the draft's opening day, they sat in McKay's office pleased to get a guy at that stage who some scouts believed had first-round talent. Unfortunately, Gruden – who had just won a Super Bowl with Brad Johnson(notes) – didn't agree with the pick and allegedly came charging into McKay's office.

"Don't ever draft a quarterback without consulting me first!" Gruden screamed, mixing in a few profanities along the way, according to a source close to the situation.

To no one's surprise, Gruden and Simms never really mixed, even when Simms was starting. Simms' best talent was throwing deep, something Gruden rarely allowed. Gruden quickly went back to the likes of Brian Griese(notes) and Jeff Garcia(notes) rather than continue to develop Simms. Even last year, as Gruden acknowledged this week, the Bucs seriously chased Brett Favre(notes) in a possible trade before Green Bay sent him to the NewYork Jets.

Gruden's affinity for aging quarterbacks is reportedly a big reason why he was fired in the offseason and replaced with Raheem Morris, a man who literally bounces through the Buccaneers' offices with more energy than a lot of his players.

"That's important to what we're doing here," general manager Mark Dominik said as he watched Morris two-step his way down the hall past the locker room. "You can't have somebody who hangs their head and gets down when you're in a rough situation like we are right now."

Furthermore, you can't have a quarterback who's ready to jump ship at the first sight of hard times. This offseason, Josh Johnson watched as the Bucs signed Leftwich and drafted Freeman. That meant that practice time was going to be at a premium for him.

"He told me this offseason after all that happened: '[The Bucs] control the cards, but I'm not going to make life easy for them by saying, 'Oh, they have all these guys, I'm not even going to try,' " Gordon Johnson said.

Dominik said he sees that same type of positive, energetic quality in Johnson.

"He has some natural leadership qualities," Dominik said. "People gravitate to him. When he walks in the locker room, he doesn't have to seek out conversation, it comes to him. People like being around him, and when you have that they want to help you succeed."

Even if you have taken a long path to get there.