Between his stints with the Buccaneers and a second run as Raiders coach, Jon Gruden served as the analyst on Monday Night Football for nine years.
Gruden now wants to return to the booth, in a very different role.
“I was a broadcaster for nine years; hell’s bells,” Gruden said on The Ira Kaufman Podcast, via JoeBucsFan.com. “I want to be play-by-play. You know, Frank Gifford, he transitioned into the play-by-play role. I would like to transition. I had nine years of watching these guys — [Mike] Tirico. And I’d like to give that a shot, man.”
It would be great to hear Gruden in any capacity, as long as he removes the restrictor plate that kept him from being as good as he could have been as a take-no-prisoners flamethrower. But he didn’t want to burn any bridges, because he planned to go back to coaching at some point. As a result, we never got to enjoy the full Chucky experience.
Of course, it could be difficult for Gruden to get a shot with any of the NFL’s current broadcast partners. His tiger-by-the-tail lawsuit against the NFL and Commissioner Roger Goodell would complicate any such efforts, to say the least.
But let’s find out if he’s got the chops. Someone should hire him for a low-level college game and see what he can do. Good, bad, or ugly, it would definitely generate more viewers than the telecast would otherwise attract.
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