Man, Jon Gruden really set the Raiders back a decade. With the Raiders releasing Johnathan Abram, the team’s 2019 1st round pick, it shows how horrifyingly bad and chaotic Jon Gruden’s four-year tenure really was.
Did Jon Gruden do anything right as the Raiders head coach? Aside from turning Derek Carr into an extremely accurate passer, Jon Gruden dismantled a growing, competitive, young team headed by a Jack Del Rio and turned it into an uncompetitive, undisciplined clown show that not only failed to reach the playoffs as they did under Del Rio, but also harbored some of the most infamous players in NFL history.
Alright, I can’t really get on Gruden’s for the actions of Henry Ruggs III, Antonio Brown, and Damon Arnette, but I can criticize him for drafting/acquiring said players.
Ruggs III, who killed a woman and her dog and a DUI crash last year, was the first WR taken in the 2020 draft by Gruden and the Raiders with the 13th selection. Normally, I wouldn’t have critiqued this pick as the Raiders desperately needed a 1# wide receiver at the time and Ruggs was a product of the Alabama system.
Though, given how Jerry Judy, Justin Jefferson, Ceedee Lamb, Brandon Aiyuk, Tee Higgins, Michael Pittman Jr., K.J. Hamler, Van Jefferson, and Devan Duvernay all were selected after him, this is a massive ‘L’ for Gruden and the Raiders. They picked, arguably, the worst wide receiver from that entire draft class, even though players like Lamb, Justin Jefferson, Aiyuk, and Judy all were projected to go higher than Ruggs.
It still baffles me why Gruden chose Ruggs over everyone else.
As for Damon Arnette, the 20th pick in that draft who was released after a video was leaked of him making death threats, he was projected to be a 2nd or early 3rd round pick, which is just further evidence of Gruden’s inane arrogance and stupidity with drafting.
And we all know about Antonio Brown and his troubles, and Gruden should never have traded for him. That whole saga destroyed the Raiders team chemistry.
So, back to the infamous 2019 draft. The Oakland Raiders (who were in the process of moving) had three 1st round picks and were in desperate need of a new pash rusher with the trade of Khalil Mack, a running back, and help in the secondary after going 4-12.
Thus, Jon Gruden being the ‘football genius’ that he is decided to replace the future hall-of-famer Khalil Mack by taking Clelin Ferrell, a bust who only has 8.5 sacks in four years, with the 3rd overall pick, even though Pro-Bowl rushers like Devin White, Josh Allen (the linebacker from Jacksonville), Ed Oliver, Devin Bush, and Brian Burns were all available to him.
Even at the time people were questioning this choice as White and Allen were seen to be better players.
Then, with his next pick he made a solid choice by picking Josh Jacobs as he has consistently proven to be a Pro-Bowl caliber RB for the Raiders. No complaints there.
Unfortunately for Raiders fans, Jon Gruden reverted back into his stubborn ways as he chose the aforementioned Johnathan Abram, who was an injury prone safety coming out of college, over players like Rock Ya-Sin, Sean Murphy-Bunting, Joejuan Williams, and Greedy Williams. What a terrible mistake.
Now, if you weren’t keeping count that would be 4 busts out of 5 draft picks, despite each one of those picks having obvious replacements that were thought of more highly even back then. In other words, Jon Gruden sucks at evaluating and picking talent, which is pretty much a vital trait to have for good head coaches.
Can you imagine a Raiders team that had any combination of the players I listed? They would have already been Super Bowl contenders for a few years now.
Obviously, the Abram departure is just another sad reminder of the utter incompetency the Jon Gruden reign engulfed the Las Vegas Raiders in for those 3 and a quarter year he was in charge of the team, and a glimpse of what could have been if they just stuck with Del Rio and the young core he was building.
Though, in all fairness, a lot of the blame of the Raiders failures has to fall on the shoulders of the guy who hired Gruden: Mark Davis.
I’ll talk about the abject atrocity that Davis has been to the Raiders and how he’s the single-worst owner (in terms of competency) in all of the NFL next.
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