A recent bombshell story from Dana White made Jon Gruden out to look pretty foolish.
White over the weekend claimed the Raiders were on the verge of adding both Tom Brady and Rob Gronkowski in March of 2020. But before Las Vegas could put pen to paper, then-head coach Jon Gruden put the kibosh on the potential moves. Brady and Gronkowski proceeded to join the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who won a Super Bowl in their first season with the legendary tandem leading the offense.
Even considering Brady’s age — he was roughly five months away from turning 43 at the time — choosing Derek Carr over the future Hall of Fame quarterback is a head-scratching move. Former Raider Lincoln Kenney, who played four seasons under Gruden, tried to make sense of the decision during a recent appearance on CBS Sports Radio’s “The Zach Gelb Show.”
“Well, Jon Gruden is a little bit of a loyalist himself,” Kennedy said, as transcribed by Audacy. “He was loyal to Derek Carr for all those years, believing in him for all the years that he had him.
“Even when Derek Carr supposedly tore his groin in one of the games towards the end of the year (in 2020), (Marcus) Mariota went in there and played pretty well and almost beat the Chargers that game. Derek still got the start the next week when he was supposed to be out for at least 10 days or two weeks. Jon Gruden has always been somewhat of a quarterback loyalist, maybe to error, but it’s always been a part of him.”
Carr wasn’t terrible the last two seasons, leading the Silver and Black to a combined 18-15 record and a 2021 playoff appearance. But considering how Brady performed in each of the last two campaigns, with no signs of slowing down, Raiders owner Mark Davis might regret letting Gruden have the final say on the Brady-Gronkowski decision two years ago.
