Jon Gruden and ‘Thursday Night Football’ logo (Photos via Twitter and Getty Images)
Former Oakland/Las Vegas Raiders and Tampa Bay Buccaneers head coach Jon Gruden went on a scathing rant about his issues with ‘Thursday Night Football.’
Unfortunately, football fans haven’t exactly been treated to the best quality TNF games here in 2024 (no wonder Al Michaels has sounded bored so often!) So when a guy like Jon Gruden speaks about ‘Thursday Night Football’ in a negative light, it’s certainly worth a listen.
TNF reared its ugliest head yesterday, with the Seattle Seahawks beating the Chicago Bears 6-3 in an all-time snooze fest. And to think just two weeks earlier, the Los Angeles Rams bested the San Francisco 49ers 12-6 in a mostly uneventful game.
“On a short week you really don’t get any time to practice. You don’t get any time to really familiarize yourself with the opponent’s blitzes, the coverages that they run, the stunts that they run up front. You don’t get a chance to study their red zone defense, their third down defense, you don’t get a chance to look at them in goal line and short yardage. So there’s very little preparation.
“And these guys are beat up, man. I don’t like seeing these guys play 61 snaps on Sunday and then have to go play 68 snaps on Thursday. It bothers me. I don’t mind doing it on Thanksgiving, I think it’s a wonderful thing. But I do believe when you’re playing Thursday football there’s very little preparation, there’s very little time to recover, and it’s going to take its toll on the performance. You don’t just show up. This is not Major League Baseball where we can play a doubleheader. It’s not the NBA, no disrespect. This is a lot of physical contact, man. A lot of these guys are hurting, they are really sucking it up right now to play.”
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Jon Gruden coached his fair share of TNF games during his tenure as an NFL head coach, so he knows better than most about the hassles of playing on a short week.
The NFL expanded its ‘Thursday Night Football’ package in the 2012 season, with the package usually going until the penultimate week of the regular season. In some years, prior to the 18-week schedule, TNF game broadcasts ended in Week 15.
NFL Should Listen To Jon Gruden
The NFL isn’t about to cancel weekly TNF games during the regular season. Not after signing a lucrative long-term deal with Amazon Prime Video. But there are ways to work around the “short week” issues.
The league should at least work the majority of TNF games around a time where teams don’t have to play on such short weeks. They can easily limit the occasions where a team has to play twice in four days, and it’d be nice if marquee teams like Kansas City, Detroit and Buffalo weren’t forced to play multiple TNF games a year.
Why Does Jon Gruden Hang A Photo Of Tom Brady’s ‘Tuck Rule’ In His Bathroom? Find Out
Tom Brady (Images Credits: Getty Images and X/@espn)
Some memories just cannot be erased and Jon Gruden is a living example of the same. Turning back the time to 2002, the then Oakland Raiders’ coach was left fuming about the infamous ‘tuck rule’ of Tom Brady. While it is no secret that the news made immense headlines, it became particularly personal for Gruden. After all, the call swung the momentum significantly towards the New England Patriots, handing Gruden the L. And after all these years, Gruden seems to be still reeling about the incident, so much so that he has the memory in his bathroom!
Why Does Jon Gruden Hang A ‘Tuck Rule’ Frame In His Bathroom?
Jon Gruden permitted a recent video tour of his Fired Football Coaches Association office. Throughout the tour, Gruden showed around his memorabilias along with some jerseys. Needless to say, these jerseys held special significance in his life, which is why they were framed. Now, while most of his collections were a happy memory, there was one particularly bizarre addition. And this was kind of the cherry on the top as well if you will.
Located right in front of his toilet is a massive frame of Tom Brady and the ‘Tuck Rule.’ Explaining the weird positioning of the picture, Gruden noted that he thinks this was the biggest robbery in his entire coaching career. “Still makes me sick when I think of the Patriots… I can’t help but fall to my knees when I think of the tuck rule,” Gruden lamented. Surely, it seems Jon Gruden’s broken heart had yet not healed. Now, let’s learn what the entire fuss about the ‘Tuck Rule’ is.
What Is The ‘Tuck Rule’ Of Tom Brady?
In the AFC divisional playoffs back in 2002 between the Raiders and the Patriots, one of the infamous incidents took place. Raiders’ CB, Charles Woodson, sacked Tom Brady as he fell on the ground. With the ball dropping out on the impact, the Raiders quickly capitalized on the fumble. At the moment, pendulums were firmly in favor of the Raiders with the score reading 13-10.
Unfortunately, things were about to get worse for Jon Gruden and his team. After replaying the move in slow motion, the ‘Tuck Rule’ came into play. It stated that as Brady moved his arm forward before ‘tucking’ it back to his body, the pass was deemed incomplete! This was a huge setback as the Patriots came back strong and clinched the victory in overtime. As for Gruden, he was traded to the Buccaneers after only a month.
