At least one member of the Oakland Raiders offense already has said how excited he is to have Jon Gruden as the team’s new head coach.
Veteran offensive tackle Donald Penn, who played under Gruden with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers from 2006 to 2008, said he’s so sure Gruden is the right man for the job he’s telling everyone it’s a guarantee that he and his Raiders teammates will be in the playoffs next year.
Penn, speaking on the NFL Network’s “Total Access” Monday, said the Raiders have all the parts in place for success, but just need the one extra ingredient that Gruden provides. Penn compares Gruden to Steve Kerr, the head coach of the Golden State Warriors, who has taken that team to the top.
"Me knowing coach Gruden, his mentality and his excitement and energy he’s going to bring, I don’t think there’s any coach in the NFL that brings that kind of excitement", Penn said. "You guys hear him on Monday night (broadcasts), you see how excited he is for football. So bringing that in, it’s going to trickle down through the building."
Penn said he called Gruden recently and told him he’ll be walking into a room “full of hungry dogs that are hungry, mad and upset” about how they played this past season in going 6-10.
“We’re not happy. We had our bar set high and we failed last year,” Penn said. “So we know what we did and we have that mentality and we have that hungriness coming in this offseason to get it going and get back on track.”
The Raiders have a news conference scheduled Tuesday at noon to introduce Gruden as the team’s head coach. At that time it’s expected Gruden also will talk about his coaching staff, which is expected to include Greg Olson as offensive coordinator, Paul Guenther as defensive coordinator and Rich Bissacia as special teams coach.
