It seems Chucky's list of off-limits questions for his recent media interview was as long as his playbook

Joe vows to get to the bottom of the weak joint interview of Jon Gruden by the Orlando Sentinel and The Tampa Tribune  on Friday night. It sure seems like the fix was in.

Chucky’s comments were published by both newspapers this weekend.

Now Joe has been a reporter for many, many years. And he’s the first to say both newspapers deserve great credit for getting Gruden to talk. It was his first local interview. But it’s obvious there were ground rules for the interview established by Gruden, topics that Gruden approved and those that were off limits.

That’s just fine. However, the Tribune and the Sentinel did not publish any of the restrictions placed upon this interview. Why not?

in reading the stories, not once did Jon Gruden decline comment. How could that possibly happen in a truly open interview?

The Sentinel published a transcript in a Q&A format. It had eight questions. That’s it – eight freaking questions. The Tribune’s stories did not have any significant Chucky comments that were not in the Sentinel. So it appears that was it. Short and sweet.

The mere fact that this was a “joint” interview granted to the newspapers is a major clue that it was censored by Chucky. There were also no questions about personnel moves and past Bucs decisions, or football questions about Bucs players, among other topics.

 Joe assures you that the reporters, the esteemed eye-Rah! Kaufman of the Tribune and Chris Harry of the Sentinel, had no desire to talk to Chucky together. Why not just give each guy 15 minutes, rather than put them together?

Joe doesn’t blame Chucky for keeping a tight reign on the line of questions. Smart move. Joe just thinks it’s very lame that the newspapers didn’t come clean to the readers. Barbara Walters would have told us what was off-limits. She often does.

There is always the one-in-a-million possibility that the reporters asked Gruden anything and everything they wanted. But that’s about as likely as Chucky candidly answering the tough questions.