Chucky Will Be Back

January 29, 2009 at 09:21am by Scott

Jon Gruden made his first public comments since his firing to ESPN. And it’s exactly what you would expect.

“Chucky will be back and hopefully my teeth will be as sharp as ever.”

Although he will make the face if requested, Gruden generally tries to play down the whole “Chucky” thing. So when he refers to himself that way on the air, you know he’s hamming it up.

“I’m not the first coach to take potshots. Hey, some people were taking potshots at Tony Dungy when I got here,” said Gruden. “Jeff Garcia, Michael Clayton, I wish those guys the best. I hope Raheem gets this thing going again.”

Here’s what Chris Mortensen did not ask: “All those guys who have taken potshots at you are saying that you are not a man of your word and that you made promises to them that you didn’t keep. What are they referring to?” And if he was evasive, you get more specific. “For example, Clayton specifically said that you would say one thing and do another. Can you think of an incident with him where that happened?” Isn’t Mortensen supposed to be one of the best? You know he was so proud of himself that he asked a “tough” question by even bringing up the negative comments. And then he let Gruden off the hook by letting him weasel out of it with his “every coach takes potshots” bullshit. It’s just so fucking infuriating.

“It was rough the way it ended, losing three or four games,” said Gruden.

It was four. You know it was four. Stop that.

“Again, it was tough the way it ended but we did some good things and I know some people who think we overachieved.”

That’s the return dig. You know he doesn’t mean that the talent of the players overcame his coaching. He means that he was able to coach up a group of marginal talent to two 9-7 seasons.

He added: “The reality is we came in with a bad salary cap situation and we left with some $50 million under the cap, so it’s not like we went out and spent a lot of money on players.”

He can’t possibly be pissing on Bruce Allen, can he? Those guys are forever linked together like Abbott & Costello. He must be taking a shot at the Glazers.

Gruden said despite the perception he could not work with young NFL quarterbacks, he has not ruled out any potential opportunities at the collegiate level.

“I really only had one young guy to work with in Chris Simms,” said Gruden. “I’d love a shot to coach some young college guys. Look, you know me. I’m an addict. I love to coach.”

You started Bruce Gradkowski for 11 games! Luke McCown was on your team for four years! Get the fuck out of here with that “only had one young guy” shit. McCown fucking worshiped you. I can’t believe you’d disregard him so quickly.

As a college coach, Gruden would burn brightly for a moment and then fizzle out quickly. He’s a great pitch man and could talk a lifelong Gator booster into sending his kid to Knoxville. But he is short on patience and his offensive scheme is too complicated for kids coming out of high school. There are no ten-year college veterans that can quickly assimilate that much information and turn it into results on the field like Rich Gannon or Brad Johnson did. He’d have to be willing to scale down his offense, which seems like it would be too big a compromise for his ego. Then again, he did find a way to include the shotgun, so I guess anything is possible.

There’s more stuff in there about him getting into broadcasting during his downtime and about his accomplishments in Tampa. One thing not in the article is him accepting some degree of responsibility for the stagnation of the team over the last several seasons. He has blamed himself after bad losses and bad seasons before, so I’m not sure if he just wasn’t asked or if he avoided it. God, this was a terrible interview. The first conversation with the guy whose firing took the entire NFL by surprise, and this was the best they could do.