Jon Gruden hints at potential return to coaching in NFL: 'I'm looking for a job'

Jon Gruden‘s days of angrily pacing NFL sidelines and screaming at referees might not be over just yet. The 61-year-old Gruden, who resigned as the Las Vegas Raiders‘ coach amid a 2021 scandal involving years of inappropriate private emails, visited Detroit Lions training camp Monday as part of a preseason tour across the NFL.

During his appearance with the Lions, Gruden spoke to local reporters and expressed a desire to return to NFL sidelines four years after resigning in disgrace after a 2021 New York Times report revealed he sent homophobic, misogynistic and racist messages sent to former Washington Commanders general manager Bruce Allen between 2011-18, including one in which he reportedly used a homophobic slur to describe NFL commissioner Roger Goodell.

“Hopefully I’m not done,” Gruden said, via Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press. “I’m about to make a comeback. I’m working hard to maybe get one more shot, but hopefully some of these guys that fell off my branch, if you say it that way, maybe they can hire me cause I’m looking for a job.”

Prior to his 2021 midseason exit from the Raiders, Gruden went 117-112 in 15 seasons as a NFL head coach, including winning Super Bowl XXXVII in his first season with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (2002-2008). Gruden previously took the Oakland Raiders to back-to-back playoff appearances in 2000-01, his third and fourth seasons during his first stint with the Raiders, before being traded to the Buccaneers prior to the 2002 season. He led Tampa to two more playoff appearances in 2005 and 2007 but never matched the success of his first season and was fired following the 2009 campaign.

After his Buccaneers firing, Gruden started a highly-successful broadcasting career as a color analyst at ESPN from 2009 until returning to for his second stint coaching the Raiders in 2018. Gruden recently joined Barstool Sports in Nov. 2024 as a football analyst, where he’s been prominently featured on Barstool shows such as “Gruden’s QB Class,” “The Pro Football Football Show” and “Shred the Line.”

While returning to the NFL might be a bit of a longshot, at least as long as Goodell remains in charge, Gruden is committed to getting back into coaching, and even suggested he’d be open to coaching at the high school and middle school levels.

“I don’t care if I coach at Jones Junior High,” Gruden told Birkett. “I’m going to coach again. I’m still coaching. I’m just not on a team officially, but I do have some private assignments I work on and I wear some gear when I’m watching the games that nobody knows about who I’m pulling for.”

Gruden served as a consultant for the New Orleans Saints in 2023, where he worked with recently-retired Saints QB Derek Carr, who previously played for Gruden with the Raiders.