Oakland Raiders: A few of the worst moves of the Jon Gruden 2.0 era
By Kevin Saito
With the Oakland Raiders falling to 2-9 on the season after a humbling defeat to Baltimore, let’s reflect a little about the road that got us here.
Another week, another loss – so goes another game in the annals of Oakland Raiders lore. That’s nine losses on the season, if you’re scoring at home. Or in case you’ve just stopped scoring altogether – which you would have in common with this Raiders team.
This 2-9 squad is so bad, it makes you long for those halcyon days of last year’s 6-10 team, doesn’t it?
The truth of the matter though, is that last year’s 6-10 squad, and the 12-4 squad of 2016, weren’t actually as good as those records reflected. These rosters were full of holes, lacked depth, and lacked consistent play.
More from Las Vegas Raiders News
- Raiders: Rookie stock report following Week 3 performance
- Raiders: Bryan Edwards out, Henry Ruggs doubtful for Sunday
- Raiders: Damon Arnette re-injures thumb, could be headed to IR
- Raiders fall short in letdown Week 3 loss to the New England Patriots
- Raiders: Game breakdown and prediction for Week 3 at New England Patriots
Those 18 wins over those two seasons were more a case of the offense bailing out a defense that has been an absolute dumpster fire since the Bronze Age – it worked out well in 2016, but those deficiencies couldn’t be covered up in 2017.
Which is why Jon Gruden had to blow up this roster and start from scratch. Like it or not, the fix for this team was not as simple as throwing some duct tape, bailing wire, and thoughts and prayers at it – the rot was deep inside and needed to be rooted out, so something better can be built in its place.
Basically, Gruden had to tear it down to – hopefully, fingers crossed – it can be built back up the right way. It can hopefully, be built back up in a way that there aren’t so many glaring deficiencies and holes in this roster.
Hopefully.
Getting to the other side of the pure suck that is this season though, isn’t easy to swallow for fans. It’s obviously not a picnic for the players either. Things are so bad, Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie retired mid-season – though, at least he had the good form to not to do it at halftime of a game.
There has been a lot of consternation about the moves Gruden has made since assuming control of the organization – and rightly so. Some of his maneuvering has been downright mind boggling – at least, if you’re looking at it in the micro.
In the macro, what he’s done with his roster purge and string of one-year veteran deals, is accumulate a ton of draft capital and build a massive warchest to spend in free agency. Gruden will go into year two with the ability to build and shape this roster the way he sees fit.
The biggest question will be whether or not he has the ability to build and shape that roster into a winner.
With the season starting to mercifully crawl to the finish line, it seems like a good time for a little reflection. Let’s take a look back at some of the mind-boggling, crazy-making moves that got us to this point – and hope that Gruden has the smarts to do things a little differently moving forward.
This list is by no means, comprehensive, and there will no doubt, many other things that can be added to this list. But, these are a few that seem to really stand out as big contributors to Oakland’s demise this season…