Remember how people were mocking Jon Gruden not so long ago? Like when he wondered about improving the pass rush after trading away pass rusher extraordinaire Khalil Mack? Or traded Amari Cooper to the Cowboys? Or shook things up by praising quarterback Nathan Peterman to the skies, seemingly dissing Derek Carr? And who can forget the summer-long Antonio Brown soap opera?
Except for moments when Gruden does something Grudenesque such as mistakenly trotting up the tunnel with one play left before halftime, as he did Sunday, no one is laughing because Chucky has the Oakland Raiders on a modest roll. They’re 6-4, winners of three in a row after their 17-10 victory over the Cincinnati Bengals. In beating the winless Bengals, the Raiders became the first team since sacks became an official stat in 1982 to have 10 or more sacks and 10 or more touchdowns from rookies in the first 10 games of the season.
Not only are they in the running for a wild card spot, they’re keeping pace with the Kansas City Chiefs in the AFC West race. Mack, meanwhile, is playing for a Bears team that is all but finished and the Raiders most likely will reap a mid-round or even top 10 pick for him in the 2020 draft. And running back Josh Jacobs, the team’s 2019 first-round draft pick, is tearing things up. His 112-yard performance Sunday marked the fourth time he has hit triple digits this season. Carr completed his first 14 passes in the game and finished with 24 of 29 completions for 292 yards and a 105.7 passer rating.
Time to stop questioning Gruden and Mike Mayock, who do appear to know what they’re doing. At least one Hall of Famer with ties to Gruden is impressed with his work in his second season back on the sideline.
“I don’t know what the outcome of the season will be, but if I had to pick a coach of the year right now it would be Jon Gruden,” Brett Favre, with whom Gruden overlapped in Green Bay, said last week in a SiriusXM NFL Radio interview. “Some people may say I’m absolutely crazy, but I think he’s done a tremendous job.
“I mean, think about the drama that he’s — and you just talked about not so much drama, but last year when he traded Khalil Mack and then Mack’s first game against Green Bay he just goes crazy and has a tremendous game and everyone says, ‘Is Gruden crazy?’ Trades Cooper. Then he has the Antonio Brown fiasco at the start of the season, and all this could have just destroyed his team.”
After going 4-12 in his first season back in Oakland, Gruden dared to remake the team.
“I think when you look at all those things that have occurred and where they are — and more importantly how they’re playing, they’re playing well and they’re responding to how he coaches — it’s just a tremendous job,” Favre said. “I’m very impressed with what he’s done there.”
From here on, the Raiders face the New York Jets, Chiefs, Tennessee Titans, Jacksonville Jaguars, Los Angeles Chargers and Denver Broncos, which means they could well be 7-4 going into the game against K.C. To boot, they’ve succeeded despite not having a true home game for seven weeks. Their latest win left them a little underwhelmed, though, after scoring at least 24 points in six straight games (and going 4-2).
“We could have had more,” Carr said. “Honestly, that’s how I feel. I left the game and I get our stat book and I looked at it and I was like, ‘They look pretty, but I could have played better.’ I’m hard on myself. … I think that’s the standard that Coach Gruden puts on me.”
It seems as if Gruden is a good fit, with his team and with the folks of Raider Nation.
“There’s something about these people. They’re nuts. They’re the closest thing to me that I’ve ever seen,” Gruden told reporters. “So we have that in common.”
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