It has become the no. 1 criticism of Jon Gruden since he joined the Raiders. For whatever reason, Gruden’s skeptics seem to believe he actually intends to coach the Raiders back to the Jim Brown era – despite the fact that he cleared up a remark he made in February about bringing the game back to 1998.
Some of his former players seem to think Gruden will have a significant adjustment period and so does Fox Sports personality Colin Cowherd.
Now Cowherd isn’t a football analyst, but he is well connected to people in the league so his opinion isn’t as worthless as some would like to believe.
This was the exchange between Cowherd and his program co-host Joy Taylor on Wednesday.
“I like Gruden. I like the Raiders to Vegas. I like all that,” Taylor said of Gruden and the Raiders. “I don’t like Gruden coming in saying ‘I’m going to keep it old school and I’m not doing analytics, and I’m not doing the fancy GPS machines’ or whatever he said. You’re coaching a different era of people. You’re coaching in a different era of the internet. So that kind of rhetoric makes me a little nervous.”
Cowherd echoed her opinion and even offered a prediction for where the Raiders will finish in the AFC West.
“I have the Raiders finishing fourth in this division this year for that reason,” Cowherd said. “I think even Joe Gibbs came back and for the first year he had to get on the treadmill and catch up to the rest of the league.”
The biggest difference between Gibbs and Gruden, though, is the fact that Gibbs spent 12 years in NASCAR when he left the Redskins in 1992. Gruden left the sideline, but he never left football. In fact, he spent much of the past decade studying film and gaining access to every locker room in the NFL.
To suggest Gruden won’t use analytics or be able to relate to a new generation of players seems a little far-fetched at this point.
And generally speaking, isn’t the other trending narrative that Gruden is mostly filling the roster with players from the previous generation, anyway?
twitter: @raidersbeat
I hope Gruden is faking everybody out by what he said he looks sneaky and is sneaky hopefuly people will eat their words GO RAIDERS!!
REAL sneaky….i think gruden got some surprises for the outside football ppl of raider nation…do you really think he wont use all to his advantage?? Remember his lil bro coaches Washington…think about it for a moment…
Cowherd also had the hot take that Dak wouldn’t win more than one game in November his rookie season and he won 5 I think. I like that Cowherd will give an opinion, but he’s wayyyy off on a lot of them.
Cowherd and his opinions are worthless, just because he knows people in the NFL makes him what ? Nothing, absolutely nothing. Comparing Gruden to Gibbs is laughable…..
This is just a silly time filling discussion. Gruden will use whatever tools are at his discretion. I think that Gruden will be effective in breaking down the game to what he knows best. Routes that open up the field and movement are his specialty. It doesn’t matter if you call it ‘old school’ because the game of football is basically “old school”. Maybe if you bring back concepts that were used 20 years ago it could work anyways because defenses are geared up and built to beat the current offensive concepts. X’s and O’s have not really changed — it is still trying to create matchup problems, to take advantage of the other teams weaknesses and tendencies — Gruden will use whatever he believes will work. As an analyst, he is very conversant with what teams are currently doing but are they conversant with the Gruden style of the past. His first down is smash mouth grind out a run to see how the defense reacts, who is getting off the ball, where they play their strength and try to cover up for weaknesses. C’mon, he knows what he wants to do now we need to see if the team can execute it. The NFL has become a quarterback driven league, who knows more about quarterbacks then the guy that has been evaluating the top quarterbacks in the league for 10 years?
I’m sure Gruden knows nothing about football anymore. He’s been inside a box in my tv for the last 10 years. We’re already picking top 10 again this year in the draftjust like we won the super bowl last year at this time, right? lmao
Love the subtle ‘her’ when talking about Cowherd lol.
Gruden just playing the media. Just making sure they dont hype the team. Anyone paying close attention to them is getting excited about the pep in the players steo that wasnt there last year.
It is so silly to think JG will have to “catch up”. The amount of tech he had to use daily with studying film on players, coaches, teams for national broadcasts and doing his own show, is staggering. He had to communicate with everyone from producers to execs to NFL management. He’ll be fine managing communication w/ his players.
I believe it’s the opposite.
He’s seen how every organization operates behind the scenes.
He knows the players, he has a bead on college via his QB camp.
Give me a break, he will be fine.
He has been around this generation of players.
I have a feeling the offense will be prolific.
#justwinbaby
It has become the “In” thing to say, and most of his critics are harping on that one statement. They are also, as they usually do interpreting what he said the way they want to. They don’t care if he clarified the statement or not. But as usual, time will tell, and these “experts will again have egg on their faces. Naturally I used the word egg as a euphemism for what I think. Go Raiders….
Or just maybe the rest of the league might have to catch up with Gruden. If we are going to speculate, just saying.