Unlike many recent head coaches hired by the Raiders, Jon Gruden came to town and assistant coaches around the league were lining up to follow.
For that reason, it was a little bit of a surprise when Gruden settled so quickly on Tom Cable to coach his offensive line.
Surely, the two had a relationship from their years in the league together, right?
Actually, they didn’t.
“I’d see him when he’d come do Monday night games, and just knew who he was,” Cable told The Athletic about Gruden. “He knew who I was, and that’s really about it. I think the connection, at least for me, is he loves ball like I love ball. He’s intense about it… He loves his football team like I do. Regardless of what the past had been for either one of us, there’s a little bit of Raider blood in both of us.”
Just before the draft, Cable was said to have had Gruden’s ear throughout the scouting process – and the Raiders draft did nothing to squash that theory.
Gruden is a big fan of Cable, but he hasn’t been the only one singing Cable’s praises. Donald Penn and Kelechi Osemele have both talked about how much they enjoy Cable’s style of coaching and as Penn put it, Marshawn Lynch is “f—– excited” to be reunited with Cable.
Nevertheless, Cable has something to prove in his first year back in silver and black. He was fired in Seattle after a string of disappointing years as the Seahawks offensive line coach and received mixed reviews during his previous stint with the Raiders.
Cable has a rich history of teaching zone blocking schemes and that isn’t particularly exciting to anyone who watched the Raiders dabble with outside zone runs a year ago. Since hiring Cable, Gruden has pointed out that Cable can teach multiple blocking schemes and added that the Raiders O-linemen will need to be familiar with a variety of blocking schemes.
Hioefully that plan will go better than it did last year.
twitter: @raidersbeat
