Oakland Raiders: Jon Gruden is out of his mind

The Oakland Raiders successfully lured Jon Gruden out of the broadcast booth and back on the sidelines. But absolute power is not all fun and games.

The Oakland Raiders finally got their man. They finally got Jon Gruden to come out of the broadcast booth and back onto the sidelines. But nobody expected it would go this poorly. In a few short months, Jon Gruden has shown that he is either out of touch or out of his mind.

The truth is probably somewhere in the middle. He is partly out of touch. He is partly out of his mind. But he is all Jon Gruden. This is Jon Gruden’s world, and we all just live in it.

The Raiders seemed desperate to get Gruden back. Per Cody Benjamin of CBSsports.com, they have been trying to get him out of the booth for six years. All that prying means the Raiders were willing to make concessions to get him back in Oakland.

And boy did they make concessions. Gruden has publicly stated that he wants to return the game to 1998. Leaving the issues of offensive scheme and analytics for another time, Gruden has run the team like it is 1998. Per Paul Gutierrez of ESPN, Gruden has signed free agents in the same pattern he did in 1998.

But the biggest comparison has to be with the trend for coaches in the 1990s versus what Gruden is doing now. Primarily, the trend in the 1990s when coaches battled with general managers over control of the personnel. It was common in that era for head coaches to demand to act as both coach and general manager. Gruden has truly returned the Raiders to 1998 in this respect.