Catching up to new NFL a stern test for Gruden
INDIANAPOLIS – Jon Gruden wants to go retro.
“Man, I’m trying to throw the game back to 1998,” the Oakland Raiders new (and old) coach says.
That’s the year Gruden — then a fresh-faced, 35-year-old hotshot offensive wizard — began his head coaching career and started turning a struggling Raiders squad into a Super Bowl contender.
However, the landscape of the league has changed drastically since those days — and even since 2008, when Gruden coached his last game with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Now he has to modernize his approach while trying to hold true to the principles that led to his past successes, including a Super Bowl win with Tampa following the 2002 season.
Offenses and defenses have evolved significantly. So, too, have the tools for game preparation and film study. Gruden last coached at a time when teams went through reams of paper to produce playbooks. All that’s digital now, uploaded along with game film onto tablets. Teams also now use advance
statistics or analytics while evaluating players.
“There’s a stack of analytical data — or ‘DAY-tuh,’ however you say that word — that people don’t even know how to read it,” Gruden lamented Wednesday at the NFL scouting combine. “It’s one thing to have the data — or ‘ DAY-tuh.’ It’s another thing to know how to read the damned thing.
“So I’m not going to rely on GPSes and all the modern technology. I will certainly have some people who are professional who can help me from that regard. But I just think doing things the old-fashioned way is a good way. And we’re going to try to lean the needle that way a little bit.”
Changes to the on-field product aren’t foreign to Gruden. As an analyst for ESPN’s Monday Night Football broadcasts the past nine seasons, he studied games and traveled to team headquarters on a weekly basis to educate himself. But helicoptering in to glean talking points differs greatly from composing one’s own system and game plans. So he’s now in catch-up mode while surrounding himself with bright football minds.
Gruden hired Greg Olson away from the Rams to serve as his offensive coordinator — returning the 16-year NFL assistant to the position he held with Oakland in 2013 and ’14 (Oakland quarterback Derek Carr’s impressive rookie season). Gruden added another longtime coach, Tom Cable, to oversee the O-line and former Packers offensive coordinator Edgar Bennett to coach the receivers. Gruden lured his former Bucs special teams coordinator/assistant head coach Rich Bisaccia away from Dallas to hold the same title in Oakland. Paul Guenther, formerly the highly regarded Bengals defensive coordinator, is charged with fixing the Raiders’ D.
“We’re changing the presentation of our offense. Really excited about the diverse staff that we’ve hired,” Gruden
said with his trademark Chucky smirk and a nod. “Terminology will be different, formations will be called differently, we’re going to run some different kinds of plays. … You have to. You obviously have to change a little bit.
“But I think the roots, the foundation of what I know, is going to stay in place. We’re going to adapt to what the rules are and adapt to what our roster allows us to put out there every week. I think that’s the uncomfortable thing right now is that I don’t know exactly what that (roster) is going to be.”
Dealing with an altered NFL climate isn’t just uncomfortable, it’s also frustrating, confessed Gruden. He’s spent hours studying his new personnel, yet so much is unresolved. The Raiders have decisions to make, both from financial and performance standpoints. They need to cut dead weight.
But Gruden still doesn’t think he has a good enough feel for the roster to offer any authoritative evaluations. He has yet to oversee even an informal workout with any of his players and can’t do so until April 9, when rules of the collective bargaining agreement permit him to start coaching football in earnest again.
“I don’t know these guys,” Gruden
grumbled. “I’ve never even met half of them. So that’s been very, very difficult for me. I’ve been emotional about it at times.”
Coaches didn’t use to abide by such restraints. Gruden recalls a time when players would drop by his office in Tampa during the offseason to “get their football fix in.” But the current CBA, which went into effect in 2011, has changed all that.
So Gruden will lean heavily on his assistants and general manager Reggie McKenzie to learn as much as possible about the 2017 Raiders.
And though Gruden doesn’t yet know what the 2018 Raiders will look like in a few months, he knows what he craves.
“I’m envious of the Patriots. I really am. The Patriot Way,” Gruden said with an almost dreamy smile. “Finding players that are versatile, finding players that are able to adapt on a weekly basis to win a game.”
The coach needs flexibility, versatility and adaptability on his new team yet also requires similar characteristics on a personal level. His ability to master those traits will largely determine whether Gruden’s second act tops (or even approaches) his first.