Over the past few years anytime a head coaching job has come up in the NFL or in college football, the name Jon Gruden has popped up in connection to it.
Gruden has been consistent in his denials of interest in many of those jobs, but with seven openings in the NFL after a bloody Black Monday, it appears as if he is ready to dip his feet back in the pool. According to CBSSports.com, sources close to the situation say that Gruden will interview with teams for their open head coaching positions around the NFL.
The report says that various teams have already contacted Gruden and his representatives quietly to see if he has interest in certain jobs. Gruden said that once the regular season was over and his duties on ESPN's Monday Night Football were done for the year, he would start talking to those teams.
While his interest does not signal a definite return, Freeman says that Gruden could be a good fit in both Philadelphia and San Diego. Prior to working the Outback Bowl for ESPN on Tuesday, Gruden spoke to the Chicago Sun-Times and sounded as if he was happy to stay on television for the time being.
"Ah, there's a lot of good candidates out there," Gruden said to the Sun-Times Blog. "I'm just focused on the Outback Bowl."
Over the past few years, Gruden has been mentioned in numerous head coaching vacancies, including at USC, Arkansas and UCLA in the college ranks, and for the previous open jobs with the Miami Dolphins and St. Louis Rams in the NFL last season. With so many jobs opened up this year, it's only natural that his name would come up again.
ESPN's Chris Mortensen spoke on Mike and Mike in the Morning and said that it is possible that Gruden will seriously look at some of the job openings around the league.
"I have to say, we all have to watch our Jon Gruden - ESPN's Jon Gruden," Mortensen said. "It makes everybody at ESPN nervous when we say that, but we haven't heard one way or the other. He is very happy at ESPN, but we know that he is on the tip of a lot of tongues with NFL people."
During 11 seasons as head coach in the NFL, Gruden went 95-81 with five playoff appearances with the Oakland Raiders and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He left coaching in 2009 to join television and has been working as an ESPN analyst on Monday Night Football. Gruden recently signed a five-year extension with the network and has said that he is content in his current position.
"I'm trying to figure out where I'm going," Gruden told Bryant Gumbel on HBO's "Real Sports" last summer. "If the right opportunity presents itself, I will come back."
By working on ESPN, Gruden has kept himself relevant to the NFL and has been able to show off his expertise at breaking down game film and analyzing plays as they happen. He is known as a great offensive mind and could be a good fit with the Chicago Bears or the Arizona Cardinals, who both dealt with issues on that side of the ball this season.
Gruden was head coach of the Raiders from 1998-2001 and went 38-26 in the regular season with one AFC championship appearance in four seasons. Following his time with Oakland, Gruden left the team to coach the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, where he led the team to a Super Bowl championship in his first season in 2002.
Gruden coached the Buccaneers to 12 wins in 2002, but only reached double-digit wins in one other season (11 in 2005). He took the Buccaneers to the playoffs three times, including in 2007 when they lost to the New York Giants on their way to the Super Bowl in the NFC Wild Card round. He became the youngest head coach to win the Super Bowl at 39 years and five months old, but was fired in 2008. Gruden won three division titles while in Tampa Bay, but finished in the bottom half of the NFC South four times in seven years.
Gruden's teams finished .500 or better in eight of 11 seasons and previously served as an offensive coach with the Green Bay Packers and the Philadelphia Eagles before becoming a head coach. He was part of an all-star staff in Green Bay under coach Mike Holmgren that included current Eagles head coach Andy Reid and former 49ers head coach Steve Mariucci.
During his time with ESPN, Gruden has called both NFL and college games and has hosted "Gruden QB Camps" segments while working with young quarterbacks like Cam Newton, Andrew Luck and Robert Griffin III. He recently was the subject of an interesting profile in the New Yorker titled: "Monday Night Lights: How Jon Gruden became America's football coach."
Gruden's younger brother Jay is currently the offensive coordinator for the Cincinnati Bengals and has been a popular name in head coaching rumors as well. He has developed quarterback Andy Dalton and wide receiver A.J. Green into offensive weapons and has helped the Bengals make two straight playoff appearances.