NFL: Jon Gruden at the Raiders: Welcome to 1998

Since Jon Gruden’s arrival at the Oakland Raiders, football fans have been asking themselves more off-season questions at the California franchise than anywhere else. Where does the coach, equipped with the most expensive contract of all time, lead the team? What is the point of his personnel decisions and in general: Is Gruden still fit for the NFL after ten years without coaching?

Preferably everything should change for the men in silver and black. In January, the Raiders decided to hand over the largest contract of all time to ESPN expert Jon Gruden. He, who pushed the franchise around the turn of the millennium to its last wedding and expressed his sheer boundless passion for playing with his energetic manner and a bright red head.

A wedding, which ended without the desired Super Bowl success. Gruden got him in the first year after his tenure in Oakland. This was ended in a way that was unusual for trainers. Through a trade.

Two first and two second round picks were given to the Raiders from the west coast of Florida for the services of the furious coach. In the Super Bowl of the following season, of all things, the duel was called Raiders vs Buccaneers, with the better end for the pirates. The Raiders have only been to the playoffs twice since Gruden’s departure and have regretted the trade in retrospect.

It is no different to explain why people have been desperately trying for years to bring back the former head coach as a saviour. “I’ve been chasing him for six years,” explained owner Mark Davis with a laugh at the performance-PK of Gruden. For six years Davis visited the ex-coach in the offseason in Tampa and tried to bring him back. Davis told him that he wasted his “time” every minute he didn’t coach.

But words alone were not enough to lure Gruden out of the cozy TV studio, while he did the work that already distinguished him most as a coach: studying football tapes. Instead, a ten-year employment contract with a volume of no less than 100 million dollars helped convince the government. By far the biggest contract ever given to a coach.

Gruden agreed and gave the franchise a brief hype that made a completely disappointing season seem to be forgotten. Those who decorate their faces on Sundays but not in black and silver instead asked themselves justified questions.

Has the game developed on him after nine years of media activity? How will the rather quiet and religious Derek Carr cope with the notoriously vulgarly swearing reasons? And how will Gruden’s Old School style fit in with the vain athletes of modern times?

Even Gruden’s first words suggested what a major upheaval of the franchise is imminent on the one hand and how great the drop height will be, into which one has gone through the risky deal on the other. “I want to bring the game back to 1998,” explained Gruden, letting most of the experts convinced by the technology and development of the game beat their hands together in front of their faces.

But what did Gruden mean by this?

The public probably interpreted the words chosen by Gruden as unwillingness to adapt to the modern game. Gruden would still live in the Stone Age and the game would have passed him long ago.

Every off-season move and every word that pronounced Gruden was carefully scrutinized and weighed up from now on. His personnel measures, which were then taken, were more likely to agree with the critics, as Gruden has engaged numerous older players and ordered little that is breathtaking.

When a journalist during the Free Agency criticized him for his obligations in connection with the “1998” quote, Gruden replied angrily: “She takes it completely out of context. I know you journalists have a lot of fun with it,” and made it clear: “We hired a lot of veterans in 1998 who were tough guys and leaders in their positions. We want to bring back the work ethic from’98 and I look forward to it!”

The Raiders separated from the wide receivers Michael Crabtree and Cordarelle Patterson in the off-season. Marquette King was also fired, apparently because Gruden had taken little pleasure in his behaviour on the field, which dealt the Raiders numerous 15-yard penalties.

A whole lot of the veterans have arrived. 15 players who have played in the league for at least five years and ten players who are 30 years or older. The highlights in terms of new additions are Jordy Nelson and Martavis Bryant. Doug Martin came from Tampa Bay after several disappointing years and together with Marshawn Lynch will become the focus of the power-opense gladly practiced by Gruden.

For this reason he also installed many sets with blocking tight ends and full backs and had to justify himself of course. “Don’t get me wrong. We’ll spread the field, run bubble screens and RPOs, just like the others. But we will also have packages with fullbacks and blocking tight ends. Maybe we’ll even put an offensive tackle on tight end one day.”

Gruden likes to point to the success of teams that have recently used several tight ends: “Philadelphia has just won the Super Bowl. They use three tight ends and drive defenses crazy. Sorry, but I just like tight ends.”

In the draft, Gruden also made decisions to support the power run game. After Mike McGlinchey, the candidate of choice, left the board to pick before Oakland’s right to vote, they first traded five places down to secure themselves with the 15th pick Kolton Miller. At this point Miller is regarded by many as an athletic prospect with great measurements and clear deficits in technique, which can develop into an excellent blindside protector for quarterback Derek Carr.

In round three, Brandon Parker was another player on an offensive line that was already one of the most expensive in the league. According to Spotrac, the Raiders-O-Line claimed 25 percent of the payroll in 2017, but a reliable run game did not come into being. That is finally about to change.

The later picks of the drag caused a stir. In Arden Key came a highly talented Edge defender whose draft value suffered from problems off the football pitch. Michigans Maurice Hurst was regarded as a sure first-round talent before serious health problems questioned the career of the Interior Lineman.

But you don’t just have to question what happened to the Raiders last season after the Gruden decision. Above all the personality Carr provided for large worry folds. After 60 touchdown passes in 2015 and’16, the past season was a very big step backwards.

Despite good protection (Oakland’s offensive line had the third most efficient pass protection after Pro Football Focus), Carr was only 35th out of 41 quarterbacks in terms of big-time throws and finished 37th in third downs. Although his receiver didn’t help Carr in any way, the Raiders went into the new season largely through him as a super bowl contender, only to finish as a disappointing third in the AFC West.

If it takes someone to wake him up, then Carr has the right man at his side. “The man must drink 20 coffees,” Carr said about his new coach. “There’s no other way to explain it. “When he starts, he’s on a different level than anything I’ve seen before.”

Losing Crabtree, whose 20 drops in the last two years are one of the lowest in the league, does not harm the receiving corps in terms of hands, but replacement Nelson has also taken a big step back in the last season. Anyway, the decision was originally interpreted as the Crabtree separation ($7.7 million) needed to create cap space for an extension with superstar Khalil Mack. However, Nelson’s two-year contract of 14 million dollars is too expensive for this.

Nelson will meet Amari Cooper (23), Seth Roberts (27) and the newcomers Martavis Bryant (26) and Ryan Switzer (23) at the age of 33 in the Receiving Corps. Especially for things like the vocal presence, old stars like him were brought in to ensure better communication on the pitch and in training as well as a different climate in the changing room.

Gruden hopes, however, that his words will not be misinterpreted again in relation to 1998. He simply values experienced players with quality, which doesn’t mean that he is a coach dinosaur, nor that his game will look like that from a bygone era.

Even a coach as convinced of himself as Gruden knows that you should keep up with the times: “You have to adapt,” says Gruden. “Either you adapt or you die. And I have no intention of dying.”