This is happening.
As of Tuesday, Jon Gruden is the head coach of the Oakland Raiders.
With him comes plenty of fanfare and even higher expectations — not only for the Raiders’ 2018 season, into the next decade as well, as Gruden reportedly signed a 10-year contract Tuesday.
There’s no question that Gruden brings charisma to the table in his second stint as Raiders head coach — it was on full display Tuesday in Alameda — but he also brings some concerns.
Gruden, after all, is not walking into a ready-made situation. While the Raiders won 12 games in 2016, they lost 10 of their final 14 games last year and no one could argue that they didn’t deserve that fate. The Raiders haven’t been a consistent winner since Gruden last coached the team — at the turn of the century.
There are three hot-spots to keep an eye on with Gruden as he takes over a team with massive potential and significant problems. These are the things that could make Gruden’s tenure with the Raiders — no matter how long it lasts — a rousing success or an expensive failure.
Derek Carr
Gruden was hired by Raiders owner Mark Davis for many reasons — star power and personal infatuation are at the top of the list — and one was Gruden’s offensive “genius” and the 2017 regression of Raiders quarterback Derek Carr.
It wasn’t explicitly stated in Tuesday’s introductory press conference, but Gruden is being brought back to Oakland to fix Carr, who signed a five-year, $125 million contract before last season.
Gruden and his West Coast Offense could push Carr to All-Pro, possible Hall of Fame levels… or the arranged marriage could be a bust.
Like most things Raiders, it’s hard to foresee much middle ground.
Carr’s favorite quarterback growing up (besides his brother, David) was Brett Favre — that’s why he wears No. 4 — and he shows many of the same traits that made Favre one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time: particularly his exceptional arm talent and scrambling ability.
Favre was a revelation in Gruden’s dearly-held West Coast Offense because not only could he execute the prescribed duties of the play, he could also make plays that weren’t expected — like firing a ball 25 yards downfield on a rope between a cornerback and a closing safety.
The play was just trying to pull the safety to that side of the field to set up a 7-yard gain with perhaps some yards after the catch, but a 25-yard gain will never be frowned upon, even by a perfectionist like Gruden.
That’s what Carr could bring to Gruden and the Raiders.
But seeing how Carr has struggled with both accuracy and pocket poise over the first four seasons of his career, and how at the end of last season Raiders offensive coordinator Todd Downing — who was Carr’s closest confidant on staff — didn’t trust his quarterback to properly read the field, a fundamental tenet of the West Coast Offense, should bring concern.
Carr has thrived when the spread-offense principles — spacing, man-to-man (or man-match) pass coverage, bubble screens, and straightforward blocking — have been the basis of the Raiders’ offense. Carr has particularly been effective in Run-Pass Option plays — which Gruden has called the “Ridiculous Protection Offense.”
Gruden might bring some of those spread concepts to the Raiders’ offense — a la Andy Reid (who worked with Gruden in Green Bay under Mike Holmgren), but it’s hard to imagine that Carr won’t be asked to run a true form of the West Coast Offense — solid, current examples of the WCO can be found with the Rams and 49ers (Sean McVay and Kyle Shanahan are both former Gruden apprentices).
Carr can study — he can learn a new offense. And you can bet that Carr will be able to handle Gruden’s “tough love” as well — he might be a nice guy in the locker room, but there’s no doubt in my mind that he can handle prodding. But even if he takes those two things in stride, will he be able to display the footwork, the poise, and the accuracy necessary to be a quarterback in Gruden’s system?
Best Case Scenario: Carr and Gruden become thick as thieves. Carr takes to the West Coast Offense with a dogged attitude and he’s able to translate nine months of study into clean, efficient quarterback play — with a little something extra to boot. In a league where the quarterback and head coach dynamic predicates success, Gruden and Carr form a power couple that makes the Raiders an AFC West powerhouse that can compete with the Steelers and Patriots.
Worst Case Scenario: Gruden isn’t able to reach Carr, or Carr isn’t willing to take the lessons the veteran head coach and his offensive coordinator Greg Olson are trying to instill. Even with an offensive playbook tailored to fit Carr’s skills, the quarterback’s pocket skittishness and inaccuracy foil Gruden’s game plans on a weekly basis and build a frustration that boils over into a move to backup quarterback Connor Cook or a veteran signing. Carr regrets negotiating a contract that gave the Raiders an easy out after the 2018 season.
His relationship with Reggie McKenzie
We didn’t learn much in Tuesday’s introductory press conference, save for the fact that Reggie McKenzie is still held in esteem by both Davis and Gruden.
McKenzie is hardly blameless for the Raiders’ 2016 regression — he failed to stock a roster that could withstand a typical injury load and tried to add in players who, frankly, didn’t fit the Raiders’ system (see: Lynch, Marshawn) — but with Jack Del Rio’s failures, that has apparently been overlooked: McKenzie is going to be Gruden’s personnel general.
At least for the time being.
The concerns on keeping McKenzie as the Raiders’ general manager aren’t that McKenzie is a bad general manager — he’s done a masterful job in handling the Raiders’ salary cap and he did build a team that won 12 games in 2016 — but more so in the power structure of the Raiders in-development front office.
Who controls the 53-man roster? No one — not Davis, Gruden, or McKenzie — was willing to say on Tuesday.
We also have no answers about who will handle the draft and scouting. In short, we have no idea where the buck stops with the Raiders’ front office.
Gruden was keen to say that he and McKenzie will work together to figure everything all out in the coming weeks and months. He added that he didn’t want a yes man, either — he wants a general manager with whom he’ll disagree.
“We aren’t always going to agree and Reggie will probably win… Look at the size of the guy!” Gruden said to a big laugh Tuesday. (The man is nothing if he’s not charismatic.)
But when push comes to shove, I don’t think it’ll be physical stature that will win out — I think it will be the size of the paycheck.
The buck will stop with the man who is being paid the most bucks.
Gruden is going to make a reported $100 million over the next ten years. McKenzie landed a four-year contract extension after the 2016 season that’s presumed to be worth one-fifth the annual salary of Gruden.
Gruden is Davis’ great white whale — the Raiders owner has tried to convince him to return to the team for six years — and he wrote him what is effectively a blank check.
And while Davis likes McKenzie, if the GM and Gruden have an honest-to-goodness difference of opinion on a player or a roster move (they’ve been known to happen in the NFL…) which side do you think Davis is going to back? Three men sat at the dais Tuesday, and McKenzie had to know sitting up there that he was the odd man out in any squabble between GM and coach — he’ll always be outvoted, 2-to-1.
This is Gruden’s team now, and if Gruden takes advantage of that truth and exercises his implied power, the way he did in Tampa Bay, it could have disastrous effects. Gruden is a hell of a coach, but he’s proven to be a mediocre personnel man at best.
Best Case Scenario: Gruden and McKenzie, who first met each other in the Packers organization, establish (re-establish?) a solid relationship and both bring out the best in each other in a way that Jack Del Rio and McKenzie never could. Gruden, learning from his past mistakes in Tampa Bay, where his personnel decisions eventually led to his ouster, trusts McKenzie to make the big decisions regarding the roster and while there’s always dialogue, Gruden sticks to coaching while McKenzie handles personnel. The two become the model of an NFL diarchy, highlighting each others’ strengths while saving each other from their well-known weaknesses.
Worst Case Scenario: McKenzie, after losing a few debates before April’s draft, becomes a glorified administrative assistant, overlooking scouting and effectively becoming a rubber stamp for Gruden’s personnel decisions. All that talk about not wanting a yes man? It’s easy to say when you know you have the power to make anyone a yes man. After a down 2018 season, Gruden fires McKenzie as a sacrificial lamb and handpicks another general manager who will rubber stamp his decisions. The same problems that befell Gruden in Tampa Bay rear their head in Oakland and Davis, still starstruck, doesn’t step in to stop it.
His relatability
Gruden, you might have heard, hasn’t been on an NFL sideline in a decade. You also might have noticed that things have changed in the NFL, in college football, at all levels of football, over the last decade. Gruden is a taskmaster who is tough on his players — he’s also trying to install a new offense and team attitude with limited practice time and contact periods.
Gruden has charisma — that’s not something that can be debated — but the personalities of NFL players, as any longtime football man or woman will tell you, have changed as well.
Gruden, in the past, has desired veteran rosters, particularly on the offensive side. That way they can learn on the fly and avoid game-killing errors, particularly inside of Gruden’s complex West Coast Offense, which isn’t a quick study.
In my opinion, he won’t be getting a roster like that with the Raiders. The 2017 season proved that it wasn’t exactly a pliable group, either.
The Raiders’ locker room needs reforming. There was a toxicity in Alameda this year — Marshawn Lynch’s individualized rules, Michael Crabtree’s attitude, and the unfettered behavior of young players created a dynamic that few would say coincided with winning. The Raiders need a shakeup and an influx of order and discipline.
But having been off the sidelines and having dealt only with coaches for the last decade, will Gruden still have the touch to relate to players and the modern confines of the game?
This is a man, after all, who unironically said “technology is incredible” and not much more in reference to Snapchat Tuesday.
Gruden might be rich, but he’s no longer the young, hip coach the Raiders hired in 1998.
And while Gruden has an offense that’s timeless and a no-nonsense attitude that will never go out of style, will he be relatable to players? Charisma is one thing, but can he create relationships with the men on his roster and relay his expectations in an efficient and effective way?
Does he still have the deft touch a coach needs?
No one can say at the moment, but we’ll start to find out in Napa.
Best Case Scenario: Gruden’s charm endears him to the Raiders immediately and despite missing a generation or two of NFL players, his coaching instincts remain sharp and he remains relatable. The Raiders’ locker room gets an attitude makeover and the Raiders are able to take to new schemes with relative ease.
Worst Case Scenario: A “How Do You Do, Fellow Kids” scenario goes down in Alameda — Gruden gets the team to buy in early on with his charisma, but when the rubber meets the road, his at-times bristly attitude and demands of perfection overwhelm the young and immature players on the team, who then tune him and his “bluster” out, much to his chagrin. (It might inspire him to take more control over personnel.) Ultimately, Gruden is in over his head with millennials and becomes an aloof disciplinarian, leaving leadership to assistant coaches and Carr, who aren’t able to pick up the slack.
