Jon Gruden's name has come up anytime a head coaching job has come up in the NFL over the past few years and it happened again Sunday as ESPN's Ed Werder wrote about the possibility of the coach returning to the Cowboys.
The team made a number of moves over the past few weeks and has brought in three coaches from Gruden's former staff when he was with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Naturally, rumors started popping up that owner Jerry Jones was planning to replace Gruden at the top of his team in the place of head coach Jason Garrett.
According to NFL.com, " Monte Kiffin (defensive coordinator), Rod Marinelli (defensive line coach) and Rich Bisaccia (special teams coach) are now all Cowboys employees with Gruden ties. New offensive coordinator Bill Callahan was on Gruden's staff with the Oakland Raiders. Tim Brown reminded us of this recently."
Werder wrote on Twitter: Response from reliable team source when I asked if TB glory-days asst. coaches being hired in Dallas meant Gruden on way: "Ridiculous."
Gruden has been in broadcasting since being fired from Tampa Bay in 2008. ESPN colleague Ron Jaworski spoke to a Philadelphia radio station about Gruden and said that he still has a desire to coach.
"He's had numerous meetings that he's told teams he's not interested in certain jobs," Jaworski said. "There are jobs he's interested in, but no one at those teams has reached out to him, or they may even have a coach in place."
Gruden's name also came up recently when Tim Brown came out to say that his old coach Bill Callahan sabotaged the Super Bowl against his Tampa Bay team.
Over the past few years, Gruden has been mentioned in numerous head coaching vacancies, including at USC, Arkansas and UCLA in the college ranks, and for the previous open jobs with the Miami Dolphins and St. Louis Rams in the NFL last season. With so many jobs opened up this year, it's only natural that his name would come up again.
During 11 seasons as head coach in the NFL, Gruden went 95-81 with five playoff appearances with the Oakland Raiders and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He left coaching in 2009 to join television and has been working as an ESPN analyst on Monday Night Football. Gruden recently signed a five-year extension with the network and has said that he is content in his current position.
Gruden was head coach of the Raiders from 1998-2001 and went 38-26 in the regular season with one AFC championship appearance in four seasons. Following his time with Oakland, Gruden left the team to coach the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, where he led the team to a Super Bowl championship in his first season in 2002.
Gruden coached the Buccaneers to 12 wins in 2002, but only reached double-digit wins in one other season (11 in 2005). He took the Buccaneers to the playoffs three times, including in 2007 when they lost to the New York Giants on their way to the Super Bowl in the NFC Wild Card round. He became the youngest head coach to win the Super Bowl at 39 years and five months old, but was fired in 2008. Gruden won three division titles while in Tampa Bay, but finished in the bottom half of the NFC South four times in seven years.
Gruden's teams finished .500 or better in eight of 11 seasons and previously served as an offensive coach with the Green Bay Packers and the Philadelphia Eagles before becoming a head coach. He was part of an all-star staff in Green Bay under coach Mike Holmgren that included current Eagles head coach Andy Reid and former 49ers head coach Steve Mariucci.
During his time with ESPN, Gruden has called both NFL and college games and has hosted "Gruden QB Camps" segments while working with young quarterbacks like Cam Newton, Andrew Luck and Robert Griffin III. He recently was the subject of an interesting profile in the New Yorker titled: "Monday Night Lights: How Jon Gruden became America's football coach."
