It’s what every player is being asked about right now. If you play for the Raiders, what is like to play for Jon Gruden?
Is he the same dude that he was on television?
Donald Penn was asked this week about Gruden and he has a special perspective on his new head coach because, well, Gruden is also his old head coach.
(yes, Donald is getting a little long in the tooth)
Penn played for Gruden in Tampa Bay and talked about his new (old) head coach this week on the ‘I AM RAPAPORT’ podcast with Michael Rapaport. This is what Penn said about Gruden and the way he goes about coaching the team:
“[Gruden] is a maniac when it comes to football. He’s going to coach you hard, but he’s going to love you and he’s going to get the most out of you…
He ain’t just a TV personality. He’s a coach. He knows his stuff. He knows what he’s talking about. He’s a great player coach. Some coaches aren’t player coaches. He can be a player coach and be serious at the same time…
He’ll go into meetings sometime and he’ll control the whole meeting. He’ll tell every single person their job, from my job, to the receivers, to the quarterback’s reads, to center, to everything. He brings so much intensity and passion, it’s like ‘man, you want to play for this guy.’
The way he comes, the way he talks, the way he carries himself and brings that energy, it’s like a different energy. It was like that in when I was in Tampa and now with his being away from football, I feel like his knowledge just took like ten steps forward. He studied football for so long and now it’s just like I can’t wait to get stuff started.”
One of the most interesting statements from Penn was that he feels like Gruden has even more knowledge as a coach after taking time away to study the game – a theory that hasn’t particularly been embraced by Gruden’s skeptics.
Looking forward to seeing who gets the last laugh on that one…
twitter: @raidersbeat
Patience. Seeing all the ridiculous theories about him being way to long and him taking the game back to 98 and cutting the punter and bad draft picks and bad free agent signings ahhh. “Experts” complain that roster isn’t good enough and needs to be changed and when the changes happen they complain about changing the roster!? Compared with the team last year, this years team is light years ahead on preparation and teaching. I can’t wait to see this team in action. Watch the experts go from criticizing to kissassicizing. Can’t wait
I hate donald ‘duck’ penn and am pissed off that i wasted the time reading his predictable well processed verbal diarrhea