So Jon Gruden Gave Permission to Post His Phone Call on the Internet? This is Why I Love This Guy.
Jon Gruden, ladies and gentlemen. The man is a national treasure. Secretly record a phone call where a grown man comes across as groveling to a problem employee who’s been pissing down his back for weeks, begging the worker to come back after he’s been blowing off work and physically coming after his supervisor, then post the recording on the internet? Out of a million people, 999,999 would demand it be taken down and threaten legal action.
But not Gruden. His prize acquisition of 2019 stuck a Spider 2 Y Banana up Gruden’s tailpipe and he just rolls with it. Better yet, he embraces it. He loves it. And that’s why you have to love Jon Gruden. He’s just one of those guys with the skin of The Thing who can take it. Who can draw up new fucks not to give like he can draw up backside route combos out of shotgun formations.
In a world of hyper-sensitive public figures obsessed with how they’re perceived, Gruden just wants to play the Jon Gruden character he invented and he is. He just wants us to know that underneath that outer layer of Football Guy are many, many more layers of Football Guy. And to that end, he had the perfect response when asked about Brown after beating Denver last night:
Source - Fans serenaded the Raiders with “F–k AB” chants after every big play and score. But the Raiders are tired of hearing about he-who-must-not-be-named. After all, he is a Patriot now. …
“I’m never going to bring it up again,” Gruden said. “That incident, whatever you call it, had nothing to do with our team’s focus or preparation. That’s it. End of story.”
But that wasn’t the end of the story. Gruden had one more thing to say about the barrage of craziness that Brown unleashed on the Silver and Black.
“As much as people talk about it, I mean, my god,” Gruden said when asked if the Raiders surprised people with their showing without AB. “Man, I feel like someone smashed me in my temple on the side of the head. Get over it, man. It’s over. You know? We were good in the preseason without him. We’re going to be fine without him. And we wish him the best.
“You know, we gave it a shot,” Gruden said before delivering his Don Corleone final line in the Brown saga. “Now New England gets their turn. Good luck to them. I can’t deal with it anymore.”
That’s how you drop a nuke into the Category 5 hurricane and take all the kinetic energy out of it. Just like he did the phone call audio. You laugh it off, say “Get over it, man,” and get busy figuring out how to beat Kansas City. Damn if it isn’t great to have Gruden back in the league. Knock on wood if you’re with me.