With the Los Angeles Rams head coaching sweepstakes seemingly underway, the team has made it clear they intend to bring in a household name. Although a number of high-profile coaches have potentially been linked to the team’s vacancy, one name has recently surfaced to the forefront.
According to Charles Robinson of Yahoo Sports, the Rams have made Jon Gruden the focal point of their head coaching search:
“The Los Angeles Rams are moving toward a meeting with ESPN analyst Jon Gruden about the team’s head coaching vacancy, multiple sources with knowledge of the Rams’ coaching search have told Yahoo Sports. The sources indicated Gruden has become a focal point on the Rams’ list of candidates, but that other candidates could also come into play – notably Stanford Cardinal head coach David Shaw and New Orleans Saints coach Sean Payton.”
Gruden made his bones as a Super Bowl champion with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers before retiring from the game shortly thereafter. Since then, he has served as an ESPN analyst for Monday Night Football, as well as breaking down the next generation of quarterbacks in his annual camp.
It should come as no surprise that Los Angeles may need more than a lot of cap space and a big market to lure Gruden away from the sweet gig he has now. There have been discussions the Rams may consider giving control of personnel decisions to candidates they find worthy of it. Gruden happens to be one of those candidates.
Gruden is no stranger to turning around the fortunes of teams struggling to take the next step into the playoffs. He took a middling 8-8 Raiders squad to atop the AFC West and into the Super Bowl in the late 1990’s.
