"I hope Coach still loves me."

When you are an ego-maniacal spin doctor like Jon Gruden, your comments must always show a little bit of your hand so nothing ever looks unplanned down the road.  You must always appear in control.

So on Monday, ever so slightly, Gruden laid the groundwork to return Jeff Garcia to the mix this season and have it seem like it was part of the plan all along, according to the St. Petersburg Times. 

Gruden did acknowledge that backup quarterbacks Luke McCown and Garcia could get some repetitions this week in preparation for Sunday’s game at Denver.

“We’re going to try to split the reps up and get all three guys some work,” Gruden said.

And he said he believed the Bucs would need all three quarterbacks at some point during the season, including Garcia, who has been the inactive third quarterback the past three games.

“Garcia was our starter and might be our starter again at some point in time,” Gruden said.