As active as the Raiders have been this offseason, coach Jon Gruden has remained mostly stealth.
Gruden has done one radio interview with syndicated host J.T. The Brick, who is Las Vegas based and works for the Raiders, as well as some quick bits and pieces for the club web site as well as ESPN and the NFL Network in their combined draft effort.
Most of the talking has been done by general manager Mike Mayock.
So I had a lot of questions when I caught up with Gruden Thursday for an exclusive phone interview:
Q: I knew I’d hear your voice at some point . . .
Gruden: We just got done with a two-hour meeting with the guys. Now we’re getting ready for our next meeting. We Zoom and we Zoom and we Zoom. To be honest I’ve just been low key. I’m not saying much. Football is kind of not as important right now to anybody given the circumstances. So I’ve just kind of been under the radar trying to get my team ready to go, get our coaches ready to go and try to be respectful of the rules. All of these rules. It’s nuts.
Q: There’s no manual for a “virtual” offseason in a coronavirus pandemic. Can you give me an idea of what it’s like?
Gruden: It’s important that we try to keep things as normal as possible when it comes to football. We still have to teach a lot of new players our system and we still have to try and bring a lot of new people together and form some camaraderie some how, some way. It’s hard to do. It’s challenging. We’ve got to try to be as creative as possible and that’s what we’re doing. We probably spend more time preparing for the meetings than we’ve ever done before. We’ve learned a lot about technology, we feel like we’re on the cutting edge of utilizing it.
Q: Between the draft and free agency, there’s a lot of new players who will be key parts to this team and you haven’t set foot on the field. Can you foster the bonds between coaches and players and players and their new teammates in this kind of environment?
Gruden: Not really. You can’t do that, because you can’t see everybody while you’re talking. You’re speaking in the dark, really. It’s hard to get 95, 100 people on one zoom call. So what we’ve tried to do is have some brief team meetings, some brief offensive/defensive meetings and spend most of our time in small groups. Tight ends are with the tight end coach, quarterbacks are with the quarterback coach and defensive players are with their coaches as well individually.
Q: Your practice sessions have always had a lot of enthusiasm and humor. Are there tricks to keeping zoom meetings light?
Gruden: We try to. I’m spending most of my time with (Marcus) Mariota and (Derek) Carr and Nate Peterman and try to put video in there and have fun. You try to put a couple plays up there to make ’em laugh. Try to stir their emotions a little bit. But at the same time, we have a lot of things we need to accomplish. This is an offseason program. We’re missing the physical reps, but we can really work hard at getting mentally quicker.
Q: Are you confident that your veterans, guys like Derek Carr and Rodney Hudson, Johnathan Hankins and Erik Harris, are forming relationships and setting expectations with new players independent of the Zoom meetings?
Gruden: You’ve got to remember, we’re in transition. We’re the only team that’s changing locations. We’ve got to find new homes, new doctors, new places to shop. We’ve got to get acclimated to a completely different environment. Players are starting to find homes, and the more players that move to Las Vegas are slowly but surely getting to know each other and creatively keeping their distance and trying to get in some workouts.
Q: In terms of physical conditioning, does your strength and conditioning staff have a good idea of who’s on schedule and who isn’t?
Gruden: Pretty much. You’re not able to see the injured players. We’ve got a lot of guys that didn’t finish the season. Foster Moreau and John Abrams, (Josh) Jacobs, Isaiah Johnson. They didn’t play. We had a lot of guys that are coming off injuries. Trent Brown, for crying out loud. We have our training staff interact with them. We have our strength and conditioning staff interact with them. We try to monitor their weight. We try to challenge them physically to get the best possible workouts and remain safe.
Q: When you were announcing in 2011, there was a March to July lockout. No contact at all, not even virtually between players and coaches. When the season began, do you remember a dropoff in the level of play?
Gruden: There’s no question. There’s no way you can lose that many reps. Things aren’t going to be the same. So you might have to modify your installation. You might not be able to do as much. You can only adapt to what the circumstances are. And we don’t know what the end game is with this circumstance. What we know is, we are preparing ourselves to go to training camp and play the regular season.
Q: Are you optimistic you’ll be on the field by late July and get in something approximating a normal season?
Gruden: I don’t have any idea. I just stay day to day. I get ready for the next meeting, the next practice. I’m very hopeful and confident that we’re going to beat this thing as a nation. I’m just trying to keep our players safe and healthy and optimistic like I am. But we’ve got to prepare to play.
Q: When free agency came, having the new stadium and practice facility was thought of as a good recruiting tool. You didn’t really get to do that, but you seemed to get a lot done. Did you find a lot of pieces to the puzzle of how to keep up with the Chiefs in your division as well as other teams? Particularly on defense?
Gruden: We like what we did. We didn’t get a chance to fly guys in and get physicals and meet people and recruit much, but we were organized. We got a lot of the guys we targeted. We went in to the draft and we felt like we added seven guys in the draft that can play. We just added another player yesterday, Prince Amukamara, that we’re excited about. We think we got better from Year 1 to Year 2 and we think we’re in a position to show some improvement in Year 3 also.
Coming Friday: Gruden gets into specifics about what is expected of free agents, the draft class, the idea of the Raiders again becoming a haven for second-chance players and his thoughts on the 2020 schedule.
