A PIRATE’S LIFE FOR HIM
How the Buccaneers had a hand in Gruden returning to Raiders
Everyone remembers how Al Davis traded Jon Gruden from the Raiders to the Tampa Buccaneers.
Few realize it was the Buccaneers who were unknowingly responsible for sending Gruden back to the Raiders 16 years later.
Gruden had rejected NFL and major college queries every year after being fired in Tampa Bay following the 2008 season, during which time he was the color analyst for ESPN’s Monday Night Football.
Then on Dec. 18, 2017, Gruden came out of the booth during a Monday night telecast between Tampa Bay and the Atlanta Falcons for a halftime ceremony in which he was inducted into the Bucs’ Ring of Honor.
Gruden received a jersey with No. 37, commemorating Tampa Bay’s 48-21 win over the Raiders in Super Bowl XXXVII in San Diego. He wowed the crowd, calling it the greatest honor he had ever received.
Warren Sapp, Derrick Brooks and Ronde Barber were there. So were Mike Alstott, Brad Johnson and Warrick Dunn. Gruden even gathered his former players and called a play, recreating a 2-yard run from Alstott that was the first touchdown in the Super Bowl win over the Raiders.
With the Bucs at 4-9, there were rumors — with Gruden there were rumors every year — that he could possibly return to Tampa Bay. He still had huge name recognition with the fan base and lived in the area.
Gruden had avoided going on the field
throughout the tenure of his Monday night career other than one visit to the Black Hole in Oakland. The on-field ceremony in Tampa Bay went straight to the heart.
By the time Gruden drove to his Florida home with his wife Cindy that night, he realized it was time.
Less than a year later, Gruden was named head coach of the Oakland and soon-to-be Las Vegas Raiders. Mark Davis, who took over the franchise upon his father’s death in 2011, asked Gruden on a yearly basis about coming back to the Raiders before finally getting him to say yes with a reported 10-year deal worth $100 million.
Gruden deflected Raiders- Bucs nostalgia talk Wednesday during a video conference, saying “I’m not going to get too deep and philosophical,” which has been one of his standard lines for the last two decades.
Gruden’s tone shifted a bit when I asked about the Ring of Honor ceremony.
“That was a great night in my life. To share it with some of my former team and coaches was special,” Gruden said. “That’s what coaching is all about. You want to help players improve, on and off the field. Ultimately you want to help them win. But that had a lot to do with it. That certainly was a springboard for me in terms of how much I missed it.”
The Raiders are scheduled to host Tampa Bay Sunday at Allegiant Stadium, and it’s tempting to assign a revenge motive for Gruden against the Buccaneers. In reality, Gruden’s career has been linked in improbable ways between the two franchises to the point where he’d rather worry about the next first down than explain the unexplainable.
The phone call that put Gruden on the path to Tampa Bay came in the morning hours of Feb. 18, 2002 from Davis — exactly one month after the Raiders lost to the New England Patriots in overtime in the “Tuck Rule” game. Davis had worked out a deal to send his head coach to the Bucs in exchange for two first-round picks, two second-round picks and $8 million in cash.
Senior assistant Bruce Allen, who a year later would later join Gruden in Tampa Bay, was in Hawaii at the Pro Bowl and knew nothing about it. Allen had hosted a Christmas party on a yacht in the Oakland Estuary less than two months earlier, including some media members as guests.
As the yacht bobbed up and down in rough weather, Allen and Gruden’s agent Bob LaMonte, in good spirits and with holiday cheer fueled by a drink or three, assured each other a longterm deal to keep Gruden in Oakland past the 2002 season was imminent.
The talks fell apart, but Allen still felt it would get done, and Gruden was prepared to coach the final year of his contract with the Raiders. Despite LaMonte’s antagonistic public stance, Gruden didn’t think he was going anywhere.
Davis asked Gruden if he wanted to leave. As Gruden told me later, “When your boss asks if you’d like to leave, there really is only one answer.”
Gruden, who replaced the popular but more reserved Tony Dungy, added a shot of adrenaline that propelled the Bucs to the Super Bowl championship against his former team. Gruden famously ran the Raiders’ offense at practice, simulating his former quarterback and 2002 NFL Most Valuable Player Rich Gannon. The Bucs intercepted Gannon five times.
Gruden had the Raiders to thank for his Super Bowl ring. Six years later, Gruden had the Raiders to thank for losing his job.
Over the next five seasons, the Bucs made two wild card appearances and lost them both. They had three losing seasons, twice in double digits.
Then in 2008, the Bucs were 9-3 with a quarter of the season to play while the Raiders were stuck in their post- Gruden abyss. Davis had fired coach Lane Kiffin four games into the season.
Kiffin wound up landing on his feet at the University of Tennessee, and that’s when the trouble started for Gruden and the Buccaneers. Kiffin wanted his father, Tampa Bay defensive coordinator Monte Kiffin, to join his staff. Monte Kiffin told Gruden he hadn’t made up his mind.
Lane, however, was telling recruits Monte was aboard and those recruits were telling it to reporters. Finally, on Nov. 30, with the Bucs improving to 9-3 with a win over the Saints, Monte Kiffin told Gruden he would leave at the end of the season to join his son and it was made public.
T he Tampa Bay defense fell apart. After giving up 16.8 points per game and 95.4 yards per game through 12 games, the Bucs surrendered 30.8 points and 189.0 yards rushing in the last four.
In Week 17, the Raiders, who were 4-11 and with an interim coach in Tom Cable, came to Tampa Bay. The Bucs could still get in the playoffs with a win.
Instead, the Raiders, with JaMarcus Russell at quarterback, won 31-24 as Michael Bush rushed for 177 yards. Tampa Bay, which had a 10-point lead early in the fourth quarter, finished 9-7 and out of the playoffs. Ten days later, both Gruden and Allen were fired. Gruden never saw it coming.
There weren’t any winners. Cable got the Raiders’ head coaching job, but Davis hired offensive coordinator Hue Jackson to run the offense and serve as a head coach in waiting. Jackson took over for Cable the following year. The Bucs haven’t made the playoffs ever since.
Gruden was too shocked to immediately consider another job. He stayed in the Tampa area, leased an office in a strip mall to study film, and got into television, first with the NFL Network and then ESPN.
Which is where Gruden stayed until Tampa Bay put him in their Ring of Honor.
It may make for a good book one day.
For now?
“I’m just concentrating on this game, honestly,” Gruden said.
Considering Gruden’s back-and-forth tale of two franchises, the scoreboard is much easier to navigate.