So far, not so good. Jon Gruden is about to enter his 4th season as The Raiders Head Coach and he's still in search of his first winning season back with the Silver and Black. At the time owner Mark Davis signed him away from the Monday Night Football booth and back to The Raiders sideline Davis said " this is a big effing deal". It certainly was, especially when Davis gave Gruden a 10 year 100 million dollar contract. But as we head into year 4 Davis has to be wondering a little about a little something called ROI, or return on investment. As we enter the 2021 season Gruden's return has been far more about the sizzle than it has been about the steak.
When Davis gave Gruden that deal he also gave him incredible power to shape the team the way he wanted and Gruden wasted no time in doing just that. He hired former NFL network draft expert Mike Mayock to be his general manager and then traded away both LB Khalil Mack and WR Amari Cooper to Chicago and Dallas for a bevy of draft picks. Mack and Cooper have been incredibly productive for their new teams, but the players the Raiders used those picks on have not. And according to a report in The Athletic, Gruden actually inquired in Chicago if the Bears would think about.....trading Mack BACK to the Raiders. Chicago, according to the report, politely declined. Making the problems worse for The Raiders going forward is what happened before Gruden's return. In the 3 years Jack Del Rio was The Raiders head coach, the team had a winning record and one post season appearance. That playoff run was marred however when QB Derek Carr broke his leg at the end of the 2016 season and couldn't take the field in their wild card loss to The Texans. Gruden has averaged just over 6 wins a season in his 3 years there while Del Rio averaged just over 8 wins a season. Let's take it a step further: in Gruden's 3 seasons The Raiders have averaged 21.6 points per game, 24th in the NFL. They've also given up 28.4 points per game over those three season which would be dead last in league over that time frame. That minus 6.8 point differential is better than only The Bengals Jaguars and Jets, who've each won a grand total of 12 games over the last 3 seasons. In other words in almost every possible way the team was far better before Gruden arrived than it's been since he got there. To borrow a line from Planes, Trains and Automobiles, " you're going the wrong way".
So now what, is Jon Gruden in trouble? Probably not. In almost any other situation in the league Gruden's seat would be uncomfortably hot right now. But as always, The Raiders are different. One of the reasons Mark Davis brought Gruden back was to make the team more interesting, give it a little shot of adrenalin. Gruden's presence certainly helped make the city of Las Vegas more interested in making sure The Raiders relocated there. He does after all have a Lombardi trophy on his resume as the winning coach for The Bucs in SB 37 (at the expense of The Raiders). And then there's that contract. Davis needed the money he got from Las Vegas in the relocation and since they haven't had a single fan inside that brand new stadium yet I'm not sure how much of that 100 million dollar deal he'd be willing to eat. That gives Gruden a little more time but at some point everyone in the NFL runs out of patience.
By any logical standard The Raiders enter 2021 as the 3rd best team in their own division, the AFC West. Patrick Mahomes and The Chiefs have been to back to back Super Bowls, and The Chargers and GM Tom Telesco have done a great job in drafting QB Justin Herbert last year and building a team around him this off season. The cards, to use a term very well understood in Vegas, appear stacked against him. For Gruden to turn it around he's going to have to find a way to close out games, something that was definitely a problem in 2020. The Raiders did score the most 4th quarter points last season, but they also allowed the most. If it was a big effing deal when The Raiders brought Gruden back, it will be a much BIGGER effing deal for the organization if they have to tell their fan base why Gruden didn't work and why they'll get it right the next time. The clock, is ticking.
