It turns out that NFL executives are just as prone to misinformation and bad speculation as any pessimistic New Orleans Saints fan. ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler emptied his notebook from Senior Bowl week in Mobile, Ala., where he met with contacts from around the league to gossip and share information.
And several sources Fowler spoke with expected Jon Gruden to be hired as the Saints’ new offensive coordinator. Given his relationship with Derek Carr and appearance at the team facility last summer as an unpaid consultant, those were some easy dots to connect — and it fed into the narrative among some Saints fans that Dennis Allen would be unable to hire a young up-and-comer to call plays on offense.
“Some people around the league had their antennae up” about Gruden returning to the NFL with the Saints, Fowler wrote; Gruden resigned from the Las Vegas Raiders in 2021 after a trove of inflammatory emails from his time at ESPN were leaked to the media. Gruden is currently suing the NFL and commissioner Roger Goodell in Nevada state court.
Fowler continued, laying out the rationale:
“Gruden, who won a Super Bowl with Tampa Bay and last roamed the sidelines as the Raiders’ head coach in 2018-21, helped out the Saints’ staff this season in a behind-the-scenes capacity, and some in the coaching community believed the Saints had interest in hiring Gruden during the process. Quarterback Derek Carr had his best seasons under Gruden and is very familiar with the offense. Gruden has also been in the Saints’ building this offseason. But his coaching outlook is complicated, as he has an outstanding lawsuit against the NFL over his controversial resignation (involving racist and misogynistic emails) from Las Vegas in 2021.”
This belief was common among Saints fans on social media, but it runs against all local credible reporting in New Orleans. Gruden’s name had come up as a possible assistant on the coaching staff, but not as an offensive coordinator or play caller. It was consistently reported that the Saints were looking for a spinoff from the Sean McVay-Kyle Shanahan coaching trees, and they got one in Klint Kubiak, who is expected to be announced as offensive coordinator after Super Bowl LVIII.
It’s understandable for fans to feel down about the team after three rough seasons in life without Drew Brees, and a lack of direction after Sean Payton stepped down from his post. Hiring Gruden to such a prominent position would have been controversial to say the least (and it’s still possible he could join the staff as an assistant or analyst, which would be a thorny issue). But by all accounts the Saints were going in a different direction and he was never in consideration for the coordinator gig. Hopefully it pays off with strong results and a return to the playoffs in 2024.
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