Nearly four years have passed since Jon Gruden was gainfully employed in the National Football League. The veteran head coach is making it clear he wants back in.
Following his resignation near the start of the 2021 season as head coach of the Las Vegas Raiders, Gruden has been seen in and out of NFL practices and training camps as he reunites with old friends and keeps tabs on the goings-on of the sport he loves. However, such glad-handling has yet to turn into a legitimate offer.
It feels like Gruden will make his way back into the NFL at some point.
During a recent training camp appearance with the Detroit Lions, during which he was able to visit with former pupils such as John Morton (offensive coordinator), David Shaw (passing game coordinator), Bruce Gradkowski (offensive assistant), and Mark Brunell (QBs coach), Gruden made his clearest appeal yet.
"Hopefully I'm not done," Gruden said. "I'm about to make a comeback. I'm working hard to maybe get one more shot, but hopefully some of these guys that fell off my branch, if you say it that way, maybe they can hire me cause I'm looking for a job."
Questions of Gruden's potential return to the NFL have been circling since his departure. Last year, Gruden's appearance at camp with his pal Andy Reid and the Kansas City Chiefs raised questions about whether or not he would join Reid's staff.
In 2018, the Raiders made the bold decision to hire Gruden back to the franchise as head coach after firing Jack Del Rio. Gruden was given a shocking $10 million/year contract—$1M more than any other NFL coach at the time—to do the job, but fortunately for Raiders fans, the team was on a slow upward ascent throughout Gruden's entire tenure.
The Raiders finished with only 4 wins in Gruden's first season, an identical total to the year before he arrived. However, the team was slow to fire general manager Reggie McKenzie until the end of Gruden's first campaign. The next two years brought 7 and then 8 wins for the Raiders—a .500 record in 2020 that at least brought them back to respectability.
The 2020 campaign included a shocking win over the Kansas City Chiefs, but Gruden allowed the team to punctuate the night with a victory lap in the team's bus around Arrowhead Stadium.
The Raiders were 3-2 to begin the 2021 season under Gruden when disturbing e-mails surfaced between the head coach and Washington general manager Bruce Allen. The exchanges included several racist, homophobic, and inappropriate comments and materials, which led to Gruden's resignation in October. Rich Bisaccia would finish the season as interim coach and guide the team to a second-place finish in the AFC West.