Something slightly off topic that has me curious. What is up with Jay Gruden and his constant interviews/work/contributions to our local media guys? He seems like he is pretty much non stop working with Kevin Sheehan, Grant Paulsen, Junkies, Chris Russell to provide insight to our current team and situation. While I suppose he provides honest feedback and a look under the hood, it feels weird to me that the most recently fired coach of this team and a coach who was equally berated and more disliked than Rivera has so much to comment on.
It’s not like he was wildly successful here or anywhere else like many coaches have gone on to do so elsewhere. Won the division once, at 9-7 in a bad year for the division and got smoked in the playoffs. Had a second “winning season” where we went 8-7-1 and missed the playoffs then had the team quit on him after starting 0-5 in his year he got fired. Yet last night I saw Grant Paulsen holding water for him on twitter saying he brought us back to back winning seasons. Which I guess is true but still kind of lame to claim that imo. He followed that up with a 1-15 season as OC with the Jags in 2020 and had a Offensive Consultant gig with the Rams which felt more like a branch extended to him from McVay more than anything.
I also never see him interview/work with the national guys at all. I never hear or see him on Dan Patrick, Eisen, NFL Network, any ESPN shows, Cowherd, etc… He only works with our media. And I don’t think he’s in media himself. I don’t necessarily dislike him but I also don’t really care what he has to say. I sure as fuck don’t have rose colored glasses about this team previous to Rivera. Kirk carried Jay and not the other way around. And Ron was ultimately brought in to fix some (mostly Dan’s fuck ups) of Jay’s mistakes. Maybe I’m looking at this the wrong way but I want no parts of Rivera calling in and doing interviews when he’s let go. Also seems like a grimey thing to do against another coach unless you’re retired or something. Idk fuck the Cowboys. Let’s Make Thanksgiving Fun Again
He was 6-3 with Alex Smith before losing both Smith and McCoy within 2 games. If either was healthy, that would have been a playoff team. With Smith, probably a 10+ win team. We were winning ugly but there was no one strong in the division and we had mostly divisional matchups and weak teams left. There were a lot of issues with his on the field product, but he was still miles better than Ron. I was anti-Gruden during his reign, but I look back on those days more fondly now.