make out who was running routes and making plays. But there was Dan Marino and the “Marks Brothers,” Mark Duper and Mark Clayton, lighting up Miami and the NFL in the 1980s.
And there was, as Raiders quarterback Derek Carr said, “Some ‘Crazy Legs’ guy, practicing hard. It was practice film. Some dude in the ’50s.”
Yeah, Gruden went there, breaking out footage of Elroy Hirsch for motivation. And with the mutual admiration society that exists between Gruden and Kansas City Chiefs coach Andy Reid, you have to wonder if Gruden pulled out a VCR to show the tape of Reid’s iconic appearance as a massive 13-year-old rocking a Los Angeles Rams uniform in a punt, pass and kick competition from Dec. 13, 1971.cheap nfl jerseys from china nike
Their paths diverged, though, Gruden getting hired at age 34 to coach the Raiders in 1998 while Reid took over the Philadelphia Eagles a year later. And while Gruden was traded to Tampa Bay in 2002 before television came calling in 2009, Reid has been a head coach non-stop, going to Kansas City in 2013.
“We were both young and we were able to learn a ton from a great head coach,” Reid said on a conference call with Bay Area reporters of their time under Holmgren. “Jon and I spent a lot of time together, along with Steve Mariucci. We were the youngest guys on the staff. We all kind of bonded and did our thing. We did a lot of the gopher work, which we loved. Great learning experience and great foundation to build on.
“We had a blast with that stuff — who could find what or design what. We had a blast with that. He’s a creative mind, so you’ve got to stay on your A-game when you are hanging with him.“cheap nfl nike jerseys free shipping
But while Reid has the Chiefs humming at 9-2 with an NFL MVP candidate in second-year quarterback Patrick Mahomes, Gruden has come under fire with the Raiders just 2-9 and in the running for the top draft pick.
Many wondered if a near-decade away from the sidelines was too much for Gruden to bear, and the results thus far have not necessarily debunked that theory — even if the Raiders are in the middle of a rebuild and bereft of upper-echelon talent.
“I think what he did outside the booth, staying in tune with the game, he had an office down there [in Florida], he’s got more tape than anybody, he studied and worked with all these young quarterbacks,” Reid said of Gruden. “These guys would call him to come back and work with him even after they were drafted. He stayed right up and in tune with the game.”
