Jon Gruden wants to work play-by-play on an NFL broadcast. And he will.
Appearing on WDAE in Tampa, Ira Kaufman said Gruden will handle play-by-play duties for an NFL preseason game “in about a month.”
Kaufman offered no further details as to the date, the teams, or whether it’ll be a full game or part of a game.
“I want to be play-by-play,” Gruden recently said on The Ira Kaufman Podcast. “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.”
The assignment comes at a time when Gruden has active civil litigation against the NFL and Commissioner Roger Goodell over the events that led to Gruden’s forced resignation from the Raiders during the 2021 season. Emails Gruden had sent and received while working for ESPN had made their way into thousands of documents collected during the first investigation of the Washington franchise.
Someone leaked those emails, which contained various forms of problematic content, to the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. After the first leak, Gruden did not resign. After the second, he did.
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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.
The Raiders will have five open training camp practices next month, the team announced Monday.
Four of the sessions will take place at Intermountain Health Performance Center, with one at Allegiant Stadium.
Admission to all practices at the team training facility is free, but tickets are required.
Tickets for the Allegiant Stadium open practice are $5. But 100 percent of the proceeds will go to the Raiders Foundation, which supports military members and veterans, health and wellness initiatives and youth development efforts.
A limited number of tickets will be available online beginning Thursday, July 16 at 9 a.m. PT. Due to a limited capacity at Intermountain Health Performance Center, tickets are filled on a first-come, first-served basis.
The first open practice is Sunday, Aug. 2. The other practices fans can watch at the team facility are Monday, Aug. 3, Friday, Aug. 7 and Saturday, Aug. 8. The Allegiant Stadium workout will be held Tuesday, Aug. 11 at 6 p.m. PT.
Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald made a bit of a stir on Thursday, when he told Dan Patrick that the Seahawks got help from someone with a “conflict of interest” when preparing to face the Patriots in Super Bowl LX.
The use of the phrase “conflict of interest” prompted many to conclude that the person in question was the man as to whom that phrase has been used repeatedly in recent months, given his partial ownership of the Raiders and his role as an analyst covering the rest of the league (and having unique access to many other teams) for Fox. Radio host Zach Gelb reports that Macdonald says it wasn’t Tom Brady, who had already angered plenty of Patriots fans before the game by saying he didn’t have a “dog in fight.”
“I reached out to Mike Macdonald to get clarification on his comments,” Gelb tweeted. “I asked if [Brady] was the person with the ‘conflict of interest’ that gave input to the Seahawks before the Super Bowl. Mike told me it wasn’t Brady that he was talking about in the interview.”
That may not change the minds of pissed-off Pats fans. Many will assume Macdonald is simply putting the toothpaste back in the tube. (We’ve got no reason to think Macdonald isn’t telling the truth, but nowadays truth is irrelevant to what people choose to believe.)
Although Brady last played for the Patriots in 2019, the team still uses the system he knows better than any — the Josh McDaniels offense. And Brady, who was poised to hire Seahawks offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak to coach the Raiders, presumably preferred having the new coach bring the cachet of a Super Bowl win to a franchise that hasn’t been to one in 24 years, and that has had only two one-and-down playoff appearances since then.
If it wasn’t Brady, who was it? It would have been someone who would have been able to help either with the McDaniels offense or Patriots coach Mike Vrabel’s defense, with enough of a connection to get Macdonald to call it a “conflict of interest.”
Whoever it was, there can’t be many who would get that label.
Remember when Tom Brady said before the Patriots-Seahawks Super Bowl that he didn’t have a “dog in the fight”? Maybe he did.
Seattle coach Mike Macdonald, appearing on Thursday’s edition of The Dan Patrick Show, was asked to name someone who gave Macdonald advice before Super Bowl LX that might “surprise” Dan.
“John Harbaugh and I talked,” Macdonald said. “He was great. Probably can’t mention one guy that really helped us out that had some conflict of interest.”
Dan guessed Bill Belichick. Macdonald made it clear that it wasn’t the former Patriots coach.
How about the former Patriots quarterback?
Brady, now an owner of the Raiders, was planning to hire Seattle offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak to be the next head coach in Las Vegas. Why wouldn’t Brady want to be bringing a Super Bowl winner to town?
And, frankly, the players who helped a given franchise win one or more (or six) Super Bowls may be inclined to not have their accomplishments undermined by a new championship team. Although there’s no reason to believe there’s any beef between Brady and the team that built a Brady statue outside the home stadium, there’s an odd vibe. Some have suggested that Brady would have preferred to buy a piece of the Patriots, not the Raiders, but that owner Robert Kraft wouldn’t give Brady the same sweetheart deal that Raiders owner Mark Davis did.
The key is the use of the term “conflict of interest.” That phrase has been used repeatedly regarding Brady’s role as a Fox broadcaster and as a Raiders owner. And he would clearly have a conflict between his Patriots ties and his ties to Kubiak.
Say what you will about Raiders owner Mark Davis (which usually means people say not-so-nice things about the person in question), but he cares about his players.
A.J. Perez has written a feature for the L.A. Times regarding the grass vs. turf debate, which has been fueled by multiple NFL owners bending over backwards to install grass temporarily for the World Cup. In it, Davis makes it clear that he has chosen grass because it’s better for the men who wear silver and black.
“I just always felt that football should be played on grass,” Raiders owner Mark Davis told Perez. “That’s for safety purposes, No. 1. I want it to look like a game was played even if it’s an indoor field. You see grass stains and everything else. I wasn’t going to a stadium without it being grass once I knew that capability was there. Obviously, it added a lot of cost, but it’s worth it.”
Allegiant Stadium has a grass field that slides in and out over the fixed-roof facility.
Davis could have gone with the fake stuff instead. He was willing to spend the money in order to take care of his players.
He deserves credit for that, in the same way that the owners who cling to artificial turf because it’s cheaper deserve scrutiny.
And it’s safe to say that, when it’s time for the next CBA to be negotiated, the league office will stick a clump of sod in his mouth on this specific topic.
Tom Brady has been in and around the NFL since 2000. He’s seen a thing or two. And one thing he’s seen is fairly constant.
Receivers bring drama to the game.
“I think that’s the only position on offense that requires a lot of extra energy and attention,” Brady said on the latest episode of the New Heights podcast with the Brothers Kelce. “Because the running backs are gonna touch the ball. The line, they’re gonna be engaged in every play. The tight ends, run or pass, you’re gonna be engaged in every play. It’s the receivers who stand, you know, 25 yards from the ball, just talking smack with the DB. Trying to figure out, ‘Alright, I ran my ass off and didn’t get the ball, and how do I stay locked in and committed to the team when I don’t touch the ball?’
And it’s a hard thing. Like, they’re working hard to get the ball and they don’t get it. So they get frustrated so easy, and I almost think, like, when I see these NFL offseasons, I think, I swear to God, I think now, like, ‘This is just déjà vu.’ I’ve been seeing the same shit since 2000 when I came into the league. You know, this guy . . . gets in trouble, he’s arrested. This guy gets cut, this guy gets traded. This guy’s unhappy at receiver. You know what I mean? It’s like Real Housewives of the NFL.”
Part of the challenge is to get receivers to ride the highs and lows of the number of times the ball comes their way.
“It’s the same script, and it’s, like, over — and we just, that position, it’s like I almost want to like — the psychology of receiver,” Brady said. “I almost want to say, like, ‘You’re gonna catch 110 balls this year, OK? Seventeen games. You’re a great receiver. You’re gonna catch 110 balls. One game, you’re gonna get 11 and one game, you’re gonna get three. And the next game, you’re probably gonna get 11, then you’re gonna get three. I can’t have you, like, the happiest guy in the world when you catch 11, or the most miserable guy on the team when you catch three.
“We’ve got to look at it over the course here, you’ve got to sustain, because it is a lot of emotional energy that you put out to that position to go, ‘Come on, come on, got it? Come on, stay locked in. Let’s go, because I need you. Come on.’ And it’s like, that position takes away if you have that volatile, emotional output, it takes a lot of energy from a lot of people to keep that player really stable. So you’ve got to, like, try to reframe it for them. And just say, ‘Listen, like, you may get three, but you’re gonna get 11. Or you might get 11, 11, 11. And then, you know, three, three.’”
The question came up in the context of unhappy receiver A.J. Brown, who was traded last month from the Eagles to the Patriots.
“We’re gonna see it again this year,” Brady said. “Who’s the next unhappy receiver? And I understand it. I mean, they want to be involved in the game, you know. And A.J. wanted to be involved — I covered a lot of those Eagles games. That passing offense isn’t — that’s not what that team’s known for. So now he’s actually going to a team where they are more known for their passing offense. So, you know, there will be maybe a little more satisfaction from him from that standpoint.”
Lately, Brown hasn’t gotten much satisfaction from his NFL team. But he tried. And he tried. And he tried. And he tried.
He’ll keep trying this year, in New England. And regardless of whether Brown finds it, Brady is right. There will always be an unhappy receiver, somewhere.
The acquisition of NFL Network includes an uptick in preseason games televised by ESPN.
ESPN has annouced that NFL Network will televise 19 live, out-of-market games during the three-week 2026 preseason.
Twelve more out-of-market games will be available live via the ESPN App’s Unlimited plan.
ESPN will televise one preseason game — Raiders at Texans on August 20. It will be the national TV debut of rookie quarterback Fernando Mendoza, if he plays in the game.
All 48 preseason games will be re-aired on NFL Network, as usual.
The preseason begins on Thursday, August 13. It ends on Saturday, August 29.
Quarterback Fernando Mendoza has moved on to the NFL. But he has earned one more accolade for his accomplishments at the college level.
Mendoza was named the 2025-2026 Big Ten Jesse Owens Male Athlete of the Year, the conference announced on Wednesday.
Mendoza won the CFP national championship with Indiana to cap last season, also winning the Heisman Trophy for his performance for the Hoosiers.
He is the sixth student-athlete from Indiana to win the honor, the first since track and field’s Derek Drouin in 2013.
Mendoza became only the fourth player in the common draft era — and the first from the Big Ten — to win the Heisman, win a national championship, and then go No. 1 overall in the same season. He joined Joe Burrow, Jameis Winston, and Cam Newton in accomplishing that feat.
Mendoza’s next challenge will be earning the Raiders’ starting quarterback job. Mendoza and the rest of Las Vegas’ rookies will report to training camp on July 23.
Raiders quarterback Fernando Mendoza may not be the starter in Las Vegas right away, but the first overall pick in this year’s draft will get there soon enough and he’s getting some advice from veteran teammates about how to prepare for the leadership aspects of the role.
Defensive end Maxx Crosby had Mendoza on his The Rush podcast and he asked Mendoza about his relationship with Kirk Cousins. Cousins signed with the Raiders as a free agent and would be the other choice to start at quarterback in Week 1, but Mendoza said that he’s been helpful when it comes to sharing advice he’s picked up during his time with Washington, Minnesota and Atlanta.
Mendoza said one of the biggest lessons from Cousins is that he always needs to be his genuine self in order for older teammates to believe in him as a leader. Crosby called that advice “spot on.”
“If you’re not genuine, guys pick up on that real quick,” Crosby said. “College is different. You’re growing as a man, you’re trying to figure out who you are and evolve as a leader, and you’re still going to school. You’re just trying to figure out life and how to operate. But once you get to the league, everyone’s grown men. Dudes have full families. They have different types of motivations, and everyone’s coming from a different walk of life. So being genuine, you’ll never go wrong. And trust me, I’m a little weird too. I do a lot of s—t. I’m not saying you’re weird, but I’m off the wall sometimes, and I’ll say some s—t.”
Crosby went on to say that players should never be “over the top trying to prove” that they can lead, because true leaders just do it. Mendoza’s process will continue at training camp and the Raiders will hoping people buy into him on all fronts once he does take the reins.
