Report reveals how Jon Gruden disastrous tenure doomed Raiders for years

It continues to surprise me how Jon Gruden continues to garner respect in NFL circles. At least from a talent evaluation standpoint. His last success as a coach was nearly a quarter century ago. Meanwhile his failing have been numerous in that arena. And this latest report only shines a light on just how disastrous Gruden was as a coach in his second tenure with the Raiders.

It was something I laid out in great detail just after his Raiders tenure came to an end where I attempted to narrow Gruden's mistakes in his second stint as Raiders head coach down to a top ten.

Now, this may seem like ancient history to some. But when you realize the players who were drafted in the years Gruden was the head coach of the Raiders are in their primes right now, you realize it isn't that long ago after all. And the Raiders are only now seeming to turn things around from the damage he left in his wake.

The article in the Athletic is well sourced and reveals some details about Gruden's tenure with the Raiders, much of which was long suspected. And which, at the time, was either very painful or a running joke, depending on who you're talking to.

His personnel moves were downright attrocious across the board. Whether it was keeping his own players, signing free agents, or drafting players.

This much should have been known considering after winning the Super Bowl in Tampa his first year using Tony Dungy's players while the Raiders team he faced was still using his playbook, Gruden did precisely nothing the rest of his tenure in Tampa.

That didn't stop Mark Davis from spending years courting him to return to the Silver & Black. And when he got there, Gruden returned with even more swagger and fewer voices to overrule him.

Let's start with keeping his free agents. Because that's where he made his most monumentally stupid decision. And it came before he even coached his first game.

Paul Guenther signed on as Gruden’s defensive coordinator in 2018. A few months later, on the verge of free agency, Gruden tossed him a question: hand out a massive extension to the team’s best defensive player or use that money to re-sign five serviceable starters? “Well,” Guenther said, “I took this job to coach Khalil Mack.” The Raiders let the five starters walk.

Four months later, Mack, the 2016 Defensive Player of the Year, still hadn’t signed his deal. Guenther got a call 10 days before the opener. “Guess what?” he remembers Gruden telling him. “I just traded Khalil Mack for two first-round picks.”

"Jon, we just let five starters walk out the door, and now Khalil’s gone?” Guenther said. “We got nobody left.”

The Raiders expectedly went into the toilet that season, going 4-12 while being dead last in the league in sacks by a wide margin.

The desperation for pass rush led to the first of many disastrous draft mistakes -- Clelin Ferrell.

“The grades were all over the board on him, from the scouts to the coaches,” Guenther said. The original plan had been to trade back and grab Ferrell later in the first round, but on the clock, the Raiders panicked.

The Raiders had four picks in the top 40 of that draft, and the only one that worked out was Josh Jacobs, who, despite their claims during the draft that he was Gruden's guy, the report says Mayock had to work hard to convince Gruden Jacobs was worth selecting. The other picks were all Gruden -- Ferrell, Johnathan Abram, and Trayvon Mullen -- and all busts.

It became apparent to anyone paying attention that Gruden was calling the shots the first two days and Mayock got to make his picks on day three. The report confirms that and goes a bit farther. Not only was Mayock calling the shots, Gruden wasn't even interested.

By the third day of the draft, the coach’s interest waned. “Gruden basically wasn’t even around for that part,” one source said. It’s when Mayock did some of his best work: [Maxx] Crosby in the fourth, tight end Foster Moreau 31 picks later, wideout Hunter Renfrow in the fifth.

That brings us to his outside free agents.

It was a running joke among the fans and media that Jon Gruden loved older players well past their prime. Well, it was a running joke in the building too.

“Jon loved veterans who were All-Pros like eight years ago and were on their way out to pasture,” one source said. “Anyone who had a name he remembered or had a big game against him in the past,” another said. When those types of players became available via the league’s transaction wire, the scouting staff would chuckle, knowing Mayock would get the question as soon as he stepped out to practice.

These fascinations while ignoring and even contradicting his scouts advice led to the trade that brought Antonio Brown to Oakland. Or rather Napa and Alameda because he never played for the Oakland Raiders.

Antonio Brown arrived for training camp in the summer of 2019 in a helicopter. His feet were frostbitten from a cryotherapy session in Paris. He was at odds with both the league and the Raiders over his helmet; the one he’d used for nine seasons in Pittsburgh had since been banned. The seven-time Pro Bowl wideout missed 10 of his first 11 practices, posted his fines on Instagram, slept through meetings — and torched the Oakland secondary in the rare instances he was on the field. He got into a verbal spat with Mayock during a practice in which he called his GM a “cracker” and had to be held back by teammate Vontaze Burfict. The Raiders released Brown before he ever played a snap.

“I don’t think that guy ever intended on playing football for us,” a source said.

“It was just a s—show from Day 1,” Mayock added.

Yeah, things were pretty bad. And they have remained that way in Las Vegas even after Gruden was forced to resign following the leaks of offensive comments he made in emails. That kind of dysfunction doesn't often get solved overnight. Subsequent coaching mistakes have served to keep the Raiders struggling.

We can look back on this now and hopefully just be thankful it's over because for the first time in a very long time, the Raiders appear to have a competent front office and coaching staff in place.

With John Spytek as the team's GM and Tom Brady offering his insights as a minority owner, they landed Klint Kubiak fresh off winning the Super Bowl with the Seahawks. They seem to have done well in spending their massive amounts of cap space and are two weeks away from having ten picks in the draft, including the number one overall pick.

Mark Davis seems to have learned from the Gruden experience and perhaps. the Josh McDaniels, Antonio Pierce, and Pete Carroll experiences that followed.

Also see: 10 Worst Personnel Decisions of Gruden's 2nd stint with Raiders

This article originally appeared on Raiders Wire: Report reveals how Jon Gruden disastrous tenure doomed Raiders for years