Gruden back in his element coaching at Raiders minicamp
ALAMEDA >> Jon Gruden didn’t want to wax poetic on his first day back on grass for fear of crying.
Two decades after his first offseason with the Raiders, Gruden was commandeering the practice field in Alameda again. Pacing through stretching lines, chiding players and barking orders, Gruden returned to his element for the first day of veteran mini-camp after almost a decade in the broadcast booth.
“This field has always been a laboratory for a coach. That’s where we earn our pay, I think,” Gruden said Tuesday. “We gotta develop this team. We gotta learn a lot about them quickly. We got a lot of things to teach, a lot of areas to improve. It was fun to be out there.”
After owner Mark Davis fired Jack Del Rio shortly following the 2017 season finale, players were asked about Gruden potentially becoming Oakland’s next coach after reports surfaced the move was likely. Some knew him for his Super Bowl ring in Tampa, some for his rahrah personality and football knowledge, some just as the color commentator on ESPN’s “Monday Night Football.”
On Tuesday, they finally got to see “Chucky” orchestrate a practice on grass with formations and balls and somewhatlive action after being infiltrated with pre-conceived notions about the head coach for months.
“It’s great, the energy level that he brings is amazing,” new Raiders wide receiver Jordy Nelson said. “And somehow I think he’s consistent with it day in and day out which is pretty impressive. That’s fun, and I think we’ll feed off that. I think that’s why we were successful today in our tempo and what we accomplished today. He’s bringing the energy and it feeds down to the rest of us.”
Gruden wouldn’t delve into his feelings about a day he had marked on his calendar for quite some time, but he didn’t shy away from making jokes. Asked about his Raiders gear, Gruden poked fun at his “wanting to throw the game back to 1998” comment from the NFL combine that gained traction in media circles around the league, a comment he’s since claimed was blown out of proportion.
“I got some new stuff. I like the old, plain stuff, the 1998 stuff,” Gruden smirked. “Somebody gave me a hat with a blacked-out logo. I said, ‘Get that the hell out of here.’ I want the old logo. I’m really proud of being here. I’m proud of the tradition of the Raiders. We are gonna try to restart and bring it back to teams that Raider fans are proud of.”
Some, like quarterback Derek Carr, have preexisting relationships with Gruden. They met in 2014 during Carr’s draft preparation and have stayed close since.
While a vast majority of Raiders received their first dose of the on-field edition of Gruden Energy Punch on Tuesday, Carr saw a man just being himself back where it all started.
“I’ve known him now for four or five years and I’ll say this, he’s never changed,” the quarterback said. “He’s been the same guy all the time with me. He’s hard on me, he pushes me, he challenges me. It’s everything I want because it’s everything I do for myself. I push myself, I challenge myself. At the same time he’ll say, ‘I love you man.’ You know how he feels about you so when he pushes you, you don’t care because you want to do anything for him.
“You want to go through a wall for him. I think our team feels like that. You can feel a little bit of difference around him and it’s really cool.”