Gruber can't escape Bucs' loss Bruce Lowitt, The St.Petersburg Times, published 25 October 1993 It was the best and worst of Sundays for Paul Gruber. He was back but saw up close what he had hoped to escape. After sitting out five games and insisting he wanted out because the Buccaneers weren't committed to winning, Gruber signed Wednesday and started Sunday at left tackle against the Packers. He saw why Tampa Bay is losing week after week. "We have the opportunities to make plays and we don't make them. They're there for us but we don't cash in," Gruber said after being in for about 30 plays. It's a lack of concentration. We have to make the plays when the plays are there to be made. And it can't be every once in a while. It has to be all the time. Right now there's a lot of room for improvement. We have a lot of work to do. Everyone is going to have to take it upon himself to improve - and improve in a hurry." Coach Sam Wyche planned for Gruber to be in for only 10 to 20 snaps but an excellent practice Thursday and no soreness Friday prompted him to play Gruber more. "There were a couple of times he got fatigued," Wyche said. "I told him, `Time to come out. When you get a little tired, we don't want you in a position where you can't defend yourself.' " Gruber played well, said Packers linebacker Bryce Paup, who sacked Steve DeBerg twice when Gruber was out. "He might have been a little rusty," Paup said, "but he did fine when he was in there." Half an hour after the game, Gruber still was bathed in sweat, hunched over on a stool next to his locker, reflecting on a familiar ending and looking forward to playing Atlanta and Detroit in domes. "The next two games aren't in the sun. By next weekend I'll be ready to play the entire game," Gruber, 28, said. "It was warm out there today. I'm not used to being in the sun four hours. It's never easy for me to accept this," he said of the 37-14 loss. "I'm going to fight my butt off to change it. I've had enough of this." But don't expect the Bucs' season to turn around just because he's back in uniform, Gruber said. He's in for the long haul, to teach his younger teammates "how to grow up a little bit. "I believe in these guys," he said. "As an older player it's my responsibility to teach them how to prepare for a game. It took me a long time to learn. I had guys like Rick Mallory, Randy Grimes. Now I'm in the position those guys were." Mallory (1985-88) and Grimes (1983-92) never had a winning season with the Bucs. Tampa Bay's last winning season was 1982. Is he worried that by signing a four-year contract worth $2.4-million a year rather than accepting the Raiders' offer of $1.6-million a year, he may have traded the chance of success for security? "Oh, no," Gruber insisted. "I said when I signed that I'm going out of here a winner. I'm going to make sure it happens... If I didn't believe that, I wouldn't have come back."