Chucky Still Stings From Getting Fired
November 10th, 2009
Chucky claims he hates being negative.
Joe ears are still ringing from listening to– and watching — last night’s game between the Steelers and Broncos.
Joe generally goes to a local watering hole where he can watch the game but not hear the audio, which wasn’t the case last night.
With Chucky laying the syrup thick on Monday Night Football broadcasts, every player is great. Every play is fantastic. Every coach is the next Vince Lombardi. Rarely does a player make a mistake.
And Chucky tells you this in loud decibels. That is, when he’s not slurping for a new job.
It seems eye-RAH! Kaufman of the Tampa Tribune caught up with Chucky, the Bride of Chucky, and his new co-workers at BSPN to see how Chucky has made the transition from coaching to broadcasting.
For three hours every Monday evening, Gruden’s passion flows from a broadcast booth hanging above the 50-yard line instead of the NFL sidelines he roamed for 11 years as coach of the Bucs and Oakland Raiders.
In the 10 months since he and general manager Bruce Allen were fired by Tampa Bay, Gruden has reinvented himself, both in the workplace and in the home.
“The wound is still open, man,” said the new sensation of ESPN’s “Monday Night Football” telecast. “I have to admit it — I miss preparing, I miss the opportunity to help a player get better. I miss the fans, I miss the feeling in your stomach when you wake up on game day. But this is close.”
It’s an interesting piece Kaufman has, with a number of examples of what seems to be contradictions to Chucky’s reign in Tampa. Among them:
* He hates “negativity.”
* He claims he cares deeply for former players John Lynch, Warren Sapp and Meshawn Johnson, each left under less than cordial circumstances.
* He claims he’s not going back into coaching right away.
Joe can’t blame him. Joe wouldn’t be in a rush to get another job either so long as Bryan and Joel were paying Joe $5 million a year to fish and loaf at high school track meets.
November 10th, 2009 at 5:39 pm
It’s funny to read Ira do a puff piece on Gruden… being that Ira was also one of the people who ran him out of town.
November 10th, 2009 at 6:29 pm
Joe,
Can somebody explain to me what exactly did Gruden do or what is it about him that merit almost a sense of hatred from the local MSM. In the years here when Gruden was coaching, I often find him to be extremely knowledgeable, highly qualified, high energy, hardworking, and very intelligent coach. Nobody is perfect man but I would put Gruden in the top five of the best available coaches right now. If you give Gruden enough support, he can take a team to the Superbowl. Now obviously everyone’s got there choice of coaches for their team and I don’t expect the local MSM to be kissing the head coach’s ass, but, man, I remember in the years after the Superbowl, they would cruficy Gruden for every loss and downplay any win consistently.
November 10th, 2009 at 6:40 pm
joe lets support out qb and vote josh freeman rookie of the week .. vote at http://www.nfl.com/rookies
November 10th, 2009 at 6:50 pm
Paul, The reason the media crucified Gruden is not a media friendly coach. He does not do radio and barely did after game interviews. He gave vague answers and it drove the local media crazy. They blamed bad scouting and underfunding from the Glazers on Gruden. They made up stories about him plain and simple.
November 10th, 2009 at 8:11 pm
I’ve been voting for Freeman all day!
November 10th, 2009 at 9:50 pm
I think, hearing some of the players comments since he was let go, that he came across as two-faced to some people.
Joe, it was nice to read that someone else picked up that Gruden never seems to have an objective view of a players faults/area that need improvement. He was the same way when he did the NFL draft coverage last year with NFL Network. Drives me crazy…. I don’t believe in bashing a guy, but a least have some insight into what he could stand to work on. Not the “I want 10 guys like that on my football team” every time you talk about a player.
November 10th, 2009 at 9:57 pm
Joe, I wasn’t going to bring him up again. But since YOU did first I feel I can comment. You and I both know that you and your media friends did your best to run Coach out of town. You couldn’t handle his distance from the media so you put it in the minds of all the fair weather fans of Tampa that he had to go. Never blaming the defense at all last season. Also it looks like as far as Lynch and Sapp went I would venture to say that it was orchestrated by the Glazerhouses in another cost cutting move. Oh and by the way who released our favorite Buc of all time after the firing of Coach Gruden. Well put BucRealist.
November 10th, 2009 at 10:26 pm
I agree with Paul. Jon Gruden is may favorite coach always. I would rate Jon second to Bill Belichick alone. Jon made mistakes sure, but he seemed to get the most out of his team, and injuries killed his efforts for the last several seasons.
November 10th, 2009 at 10:54 pm
Look, I saw all the faults many of you guys saw in Gruden. He at times sounded condescending, combative, and secretive towards the media. I’m sure he might have said one thing to some of his players and then did another thing, but I would chalked that up that in some instances his original decisions (promises) was overruled by the GM or the owners. I’m willing to say that some of these characteristics (aloofness, two-face, promise breaking, etc.) of Gruden that the local MSM use as reasons to hate him are also shared by coaches like Belichick and Parcells, whom these same so called media experts heavily touted as Gruden’s replacements.
I really did not feel he deserve the obvious venom the local MSM continually spewed towards him. But hey he is history and everyone is entitled to like whoever they like. I just want to lay my opinion that these beat writers (namely TBO and SP Times) have obvious personal agendas and vendetas.
Anyway, congrats to the Buccaneers and Raheem for winning Sunday! I still think his not qualified to be a head coach, but hey maybe Josh Freeman will help keep him around awhile longer. I don’t care who’s coach as long as they keep winning. If they start losing again then I’ll be back here to vent.
November 11th, 2009 at 6:22 pm
I always thought the animosity was in large part due to the fact that Gruden was brought here as an offensive guru to complement the consistently Top 5 Defense we had at the time… and the performance on the offensive side of the ball (more often than not) looked more like Mike Shula than Mike Holmgren. granted there were a ton of factors (injuries, salary dumps, etc.) that played into those performances but, I always thought the Gruden hate was a result of mismanaged expectations.
Obviously, dumping fan faves Lynch and sapp rather unceremoniously didn’t help but, as stated above i think that had more to do with the Glazers than Gruden. I cannot wait for some sort of tell-all book to be released about what was really going down between Chucky, Allen, Monte and the Glazers…wanna write it for us Joe?