Former Washington head coach Jay Gruden is a frequent guest on several Washington-area radio shows and podcasts these days. Gruden coached Washington from 2014 through the first five games of the 2019 season, when he was fired after starting 0-5.
While some think Gruden comes on local airwaves to “hate on” the Commanders, that couldn’t be further from the truth. Gruden praises Washington and offers excellent insight into players, schemes and game situations. He also provides analysis on the rest of the NFL, too.
Gruden recently opened a Twitter — or X — account. You can see Gruden’s personality in some of his tweets. He’s never afraid to bust his own chops from his time as a coach.
On Friday, Gruden had a different response to the Washington Commanders firing defensive coordinator Jack Del Rio.
How can u have 4 first roundD linemen, a first round Lb, a first round corner , a third round corner that got paid, and be 32nd in defense ?
— Jay Gruden (@Coach_JayGruden) November 25, 2023
He’s right. Despite the franchise’s enormous amount of investments on that side of the ball, Washington’s defense was terrible under Del Rio in two of his four seasons.
But Gruden had one more tweet on the matter, and it was personal.
Hey Jack, when u talk to media , some of us remember….
— Jay Gruden (@Coach_JayGruden) November 25, 2023
So, what was Gruden talking about?
It could be this.
Jack Del Rio on the Jon Gruden emails: "It was, I guess, shocking. Embarrassingly bad for a person in that position to have those kinds of thoughts and to express them like that. I don't have much respect for it."
— Nicki Jhabvala (@NickiJhabvala) October 14, 2021
Need more context?
Del Rio was fired as the Raiders head coach after the 2017 season. Why? So owner Mark Davis could bring Jay’s brother, Jon, to coach the Raiders, whom he coached from 1998-2001.
Jay Gruden likely remembered Del Rio’s comments about his brother from 2021.
As for Del Rio, he was no stranger to controversial comments himself, which earned him a fine in 2022.