New Raiders coach by the numbers
Gruden has brought home hardware from the field and the broadcast booth
The fantasy has turned reality for Raiders fans. Jon Gruden is finally leaving the broadcast booth for the Oakland sideline.
The Raiders will introduce Gruden at a grandiose press conference on Tuesday and give him a monstrous $10year, approximately $100 million contract. Oh yeah, there’s still a football team that needs much improvement from its 6-10 season in 2017.
Outside all the hype of this move, there’s a handful you might not know about Gruden. Here are 10 of those things:
1: Gruden has two brothers, and you know what one of them does. Jay is the Washington head coach, but have you heard of Jim? He’s the oldest, three years Jon’s elder, and works as a radiologist for Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City.
2: Deuce Gruden is one of Jon’s three sons, and he serves as an assistant strength and conditioning coach for Uncle Jay in Washington.
3: Gruden wasn’t much of a star player himself. Out of high school, he attended Muskingum College in New Concord, Ohio. He then played football for three years at Dayton but never blossomed into much of a factor as a backup quarterback.
4: Gruden has been nominated for six Sports Emmys. Since 2009, he’s served prominently on ESPN as the Monday Night Football color commentator, as well as developing his popular “Gruden’s QB Camp” series.
5: Gruden had all three current Raiders quarterbacks on his QB camp show: Derek Carr, EJ Manuel and Connor Cook.
6: Only five current NFL players have played for Gruden. Two of them are with the Raiders, and both ended the season on injured reserve. Left tackle Donald Penn played for Gruden in Tampa from 2007-08. Kicker Sebastian Janikowski played for him in Oakland from 2000-01.
7: After he was fired in Tampa, Gruden created the Fired Football Coaches Association.
8: Eight coaches under Gruden have gone on to be head coaches in the NFL. They include Bill Callahan, Rod Marinelli, Raheem Morris, Gus Bradley, Marc Trestman, Jay Gruden, Mike Tomlin and Sean McVay.
9: You always hear Gruden talking about Spider 2 Y Banana. Do you know what the play actually means? It’s a play-action sequence.
10: Gruden is the secondyoungest coach to win a Super Bowl behind Pittsburgh’s Tomlin. Gruden, then 39, won his first with the Buccaneers in 2002 beating the Raiders by 27. Tomlin was 36 when he won his first.