![]() ![]() “When you play each other, embrace it and enjoy it. The Harbaughs managed to make that happen: John’s Baltimore Ravens beat younger brother Jim’s San Francisco 49ers 34-31 for the title in 2013. If the Grudens remain in their current jobs, the only chance to match wits beforehand would come in the Super Bowl. Now they are NFL competitors, even though the Redskins and Raiders aren’t slated to play each other until the 2021 regular season. His prior head coaching experience was a brief stint in something called the United Football League and a longer tenure in the better-known Arena League, where he led the Orlando Predators to two championships (Jim says he has the discs to prove it). The more relaxed is Jay, 28-35-1 with one playoff appearance. During 11 seasons with the Raiders (1998-01) and Tampa Bay Buccaneers (2002-08), he won a Super Bowl and went 95-81 in the regular season. The explosive son, naturally, is Jon, who earned the nickname Chucky (a character in the “Child’s Play” horror film series) during his first go-round as a head coach. Then, with a knowing chuckle, he added: “Personality-wise, they’re very different. But I never knew they would take it to this level,” Jim continued. “They grew up in the same house, and they love each other, but they’re not very much the same,” Jim Gruden said about the two sons who followed him into the coaching business (a third - and oldest - brother is a radiologist in New York Jon joked about being “the forgotten Gruden” as the supposedly least-loved middle child). With Jon leaving “Monday Night Football” to return to the sideline after a decade away, and Jay entering his fifth season, they will join the Harbaughs as the only sets of siblings to simultaneously hold jobs as NFL head coaches. Jay didn’t enter the NFL until more than a decade later, as an assistant on Jon’s Tampa Bay staff at age 35 he became a head coach four years ago in Washington. Jon got there first, hired as an assistant with the San Francisco 49ers at age 26, then getting his first head coaching job with the Raiders at 34 in 1998. But to get to be head coaches in the NFL was probably an unrealistic dream,” Jay said, leaning back on a couch at his team’s practice facility. ![]() Both of us knew we were going to be in football, one way or another. On most Sundays, there will be two games of particular interest: those involving Jon’s Oakland Raiders or Jay’s Washington Redskins. He uses the word “we” a lot while discussing his kids’ work, and all of the Grudens will be counting on adding to the video collection when the NFL season starts in September. I tell my wife, ‘It looks like we’re going to lose this game.’ But by golly, we pull it off. “Some nights, when there’s nothing on TV or nothing to do, we’ll put one on and enjoy it again. I won’t watch any game that they lose,” Jim Gruden said during a telephone interview. “I’ll watch the whole game afterward - if they win.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |