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<\/p>\nThe pursuit lasted six years and required 15 cross-country flights.<\/p>\n
Mark Davis hid them all from the four head coaches he churned through after his father\u2019s death in 2011. The Oakland Raiders were now his team, and in his mind, there was only one man who could save them.<\/p>\n
Jon Gruden had done it before. It was in Oakland where Gruden first became a coaching star, the fire-breathing offensive wunderkind who screamed and scowled and boasted to reporters that he set his alarm for 3:17 each morning. From 1998 to 2001 he lifted one of the NFL\u2019s signature franchises back to relevance, only to be shipped to Tampa Bay in the middle of the night for two first-round picks, two second-round picks and $8 million in cash \u2014 Al Davis\u2019 way of ending a contract dispute. Twelve months later, Gruden\u2019s Buccaneers routed his old team in Super Bowl XXXVII.<\/p>\n
By 2017, it was much easier to remember Gruden\u2019s Super Bowl triumph than the fact that Tampa Bay didn\u2019t win a single playoff game in the six years that followed. He was finishing his ninth season as the color analyst on ESPN\u2019s \u201cMonday Night Football,\u201d and his time away only stoked the fascination of NFL owners. The longer Gruden was at ESPN, the more coveted a candidate he became, chased not only by Davis but also the Indianapolis Colts\u2019 Jim Irsay, who earlier that year tried to pair Gruden with franchise icon Peyton Manning in an executive role. Rumors that Gruden might take a top college job at Tennessee, where he had once been a graduate assistant, persisted for years. He seemed to relish the interest, allowing his reputation to burnish with each coaching cycle.<\/p>\n
So when the Raiders crumbled from 6-6 to 6-10 in their third season under Jack Del Rio, Davis\u2019 courtship of Gruden intensified. Sometimes Davis called him in the middle of the night. Sometimes he called just before kickoff. One Raiders staffer caught the two in an elevator at the team hotel the night before a Week 16 loss in Philadelphia, a game Gruden called in the ESPN booth the next day.<\/p>\n
A few weeks later, Gruden decided he was in. It had taken calls to his wife and his mother, plus all those trips to Tampa, where Davis visited so often he not only had a favorite hotel but a favorite laundromat, too. The owner beamed from atop the stage at the introductory news conference, smiling as if he\u2019d won a Super Bowl. \u201cOnce a Raider, always a Raider,\u201d he began. For 37 minutes Davis couldn\u2019t wipe the grin off his face. He called it the biggest day of his life. He said his dream had come true.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a big effin\u2019 deal,\u201d he bragged.<\/p>\n
Almost 10 years later, the Raiders are again awash in optimism. In two weeks, they\u2019re likely to land Heisman Trophy winner Fernando Mendoza with the top pick in the 2026 NFL Draft. NFL legend Tom Brady is calling the shots after buying a minority stake in the team in 2024. New coach Klint Kubiak is fresh off a Super Bowl run with the Seattle Seahawks. And defensive lynchpin Maxx Crosby is, for now, still on the roster.<\/p>\n
But this franchise has been here before, buying into the hope of a bright future. Davis thought the Gruden hire would revive The Raider Way \u2014 the sharpest mind in the game, the polished prodigy coming back to kick everyone\u2019s ass \u2014 and he was willing to hand Gruden an unprecedented 10-year, $100 million contract to prove it. In time, the owner would learn Gruden was far from the football savant he played on TV.<\/p>\n
As one former Raiders exec summed up the experience: \u201cIt was all just so desperate.\u201d<\/p>\n
Inside the building, they called them kill tapes.<\/p>\n
Months of scouting \u2014 trips to the school, conversations with coaches, hours of game tape, Senior Bowl, NFL Combine and pro day workouts \u2014 could be trampled in a matter of minutes, subject to the ever-shifting moods of the man in charge. Gruden strolled through the doors in Oakland in 2018 with undisputed authority, and if he wasn\u2019t in on a prospect, former staffers remember, he\u2019d have one of his assistants compile a short video cut-up of the player\u2019s worst snaps, then show it to all the scouts.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt wasn\u2019t reflective of all the work you did,\u201d said one team source \u2014 who, like others for this story, was granted anonymity to speak freely about his experiences working for the organization. \u201cYou can make a player look any way you want. You can make Tom Brady look like a bum.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some veteran personnel men would push back against Gruden once in a while, but the less experienced ones did not. When the coach unleashed a kill tape on one of their prospects, they knew it was over. They\u2019d sit there in silence, swallowing their words. Gruden, who declined to comment for this story, could still coach, still scheme, and at times, still lead. \u201cHe just needed to stay the f\u2014 away from evaluating talent and building the roster,\u201d one former team employee said.<\/p>\n
He couldn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
When Gruden was handed the keys to the franchise, he laughed off the notion he wouldn\u2019t work well with the team\u2019s incumbent general manager, Reggie McKenzie. \u201cReggie will win a lot of \u2019em,\u201d Gruden said of any potential personnel tussles with the former NFL linebacker. \u201cHe\u2019s a lot bigger than me.\u201d Within a year, McKenzie was out, replaced by a first-time GM straight off a TV set.<\/p>\n
In other words, Mike Mayock was not someone who could tell Jon Gruden no.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you see an established coach bring in a GM who\u2019s never done the job, it\u2019s 100 percent because the coach wants to run the building and manipulate things exactly how he likes them,\u201d said a former team employee.<\/p>\n
This was Gruden\u2019s show. One game management exec who\u2019d been with the team several years was told by the coach that he\u2019d get an opportunity to interview for his job. He spent weeks preparing, studying Gruden\u2019s background, system and tendencies, even turning down opportunities with other NFL clubs. Then the Raiders\u2019 head of security called. \u201cWhat\u2019s a good address to send all your stuff to?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n
There would be no interview. The explanation he got a few days later offered little solace: \u201cJon heard analytics in your title and wanted nothing to do with you.\u201d (The Raiders, fifth in the league in challenge success rate during the exec\u2019s time there, quickly became one of the worst in football. In 2019 alone, Gruden went 1-for-10 on coach\u2019s challenges.)<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n Gruden developed into a star in his first stint with the Raiders from 1998 to 2001. (Jed Jacobsohn \/ Allsport via Getty Images)<\/p>\n
When it came to roster construction, Gruden had a type the pro scouting staff came to know well: \u201cJon loved veterans who were All-Pros like eight years ago and were on their way out to pasture,\u201d one source said. \u201cAnyone who had a name he remembered or had a big game against him in the past,\u201d another said. When those types of players became available via the league\u2019s transaction wire, the scouting staff would chuckle, knowing Mayock would get the question as soon as he stepped out to practice.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was Gruden\u2019s crutch,\u201d one source said. \u201cThis happens around the league with some coaches \u2014 they just want their guys. They don\u2019t wanna teach or develop.\u201d<\/p>\n
Often, the staff would spend weeks studying a free agent and ultimately decide he was worth signing. \u201cThen five minutes later, Gruden would storm in and say he\u2019d just talked to his brother Jay (the head coach in Washington from 2014-19) and say, \u2018This guy sucks, we don\u2019t want him.\u2019 And that was that,\u201d one source said. \u201cJon was like the wind, man. Every single day you had no idea which way he was going to blow.\u201d<\/p>\n
Paul Guenther signed on as Gruden\u2019s defensive coordinator in 2018. A few months later, on the verge of free agency, Gruden tossed him a question: hand out a massive extension to the team\u2019s best defensive player or use that money to re-sign five serviceable starters? \u201cWell,\u201d Guenther said, \u201cI took this job to coach Khalil Mack.\u201d The Raiders let the five starters walk.<\/p>\n
Four months later, Mack, the 2016 Defensive Player of the Year, still hadn\u2019t signed his deal. Guenther got a call 10 days before the opener. \u201cGuess what?\u201d he remembers Gruden telling him. \u201cI just traded Khalil Mack for two first-round picks.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cJon, we just let five starters walk out the door, and now Khalil\u2019s gone?\u201d Guenther said. \u201cWe got nobody left.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Raiders went 4-12 that year and gave up the most points in the league. \u201cKhalil was the heart and soul of our team,\u201d one source said. \u201cSo when you trade him, you\u2019re telling everyone he\u2019s not good enough. The rest of the players are wondering, \u2018How am I gonna be good enough?’\u201d<\/p>\n
Thanks to Gruden trading away another top talent \u2014 wideout Amari Cooper was sent to Dallas midseason \u2014 the Raiders had a stash of premium picks ahead of the 2019 draft: three first-rounders and a fourth inside the top 40. It should have been the foundation of a rebuild. It wasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
The Raiders missed badly with their first selection, gambling on Clemson edge Clelin Ferrell fourth overall despite considerable pushback in the building. \u201cThe grades were all over the board on him, from the scouts to the coaches,\u201d Guenther said. The original plan had been to trade back and grab Ferrell later in the first round, but on the clock, the Raiders panicked. By August, the staff was starting to grow nervous. \u201cWe had this fourth-rounder out of Eastern Michigan outplaying the No. 4 pick in the draft every single day,\u201d one source said. Indeed, that fourth-rounder, Crosby, remains the shrewdest pick the Raiders made in a decade.<\/p>\n
Of those four picks inside the top 40, only running back Josh Jacobs \u2014 whom Mayock had to convince Gruden to come around on, according to some in the room \u2014 proved a hit. By the third day of the draft, the coach\u2019s interest waned. \u201cGruden basically wasn\u2019t even around for that part,\u201d one source said. It\u2019s when Mayock did some of his best work: Crosby in the fourth, tight end Foster Moreau 31 picks later, wideout Hunter Renfrow in the fifth.<\/p>\n
Still, despite an uneven first draft together, Gruden and Mayock had reason to believe: Thanks to the coach\u2019s persistence, one of the league\u2019s most dynamic offensive weapons was on his way to Oakland.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
\n Antonio Brown never took a regular-season snap with the Raiders after being traded from Pittsburgh in March 2019. (Christian Petersen \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Antonio Brown arrived for training camp in the summer of 2019 in a helicopter. His feet were frostbitten from a cryotherapy session in Paris. He was at odds with both the league and the Raiders over his helmet; the one he\u2019d used for nine seasons in Pittsburgh had since been banned. The seven-time Pro Bowl wideout missed 10 of his first 11 practices, posted his fines on Instagram, slept through meetings \u2014 and torched the Oakland secondary in the rare instances he was on the field. He got into a verbal spat with Mayock during a practice in which he called his GM a \u201ccracker\u201d and had to be held back by teammate Vontaze Burfict. The Raiders released Brown before he ever played a snap.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think that guy ever intended on playing football for us,\u201d a source said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was just a s\u2014how from Day 1,\u201d Mayock added.<\/p>\n
The miss on Brown, several sources indicated, spoke to Gruden\u2019s biggest weakness. He\u2019d get blinded by talent, believing he could outcoach any ancillary issue. \u201cJon didn\u2019t respect a player\u2019s football background or football character enough,\u201d one said. \u201cThat\u2019s why he whiffed on so many guys.\u201d<\/p>\n
Davis, who declined to comment through a team spokesperson, could be both odd and indignant, former employees said. One remembers him screaming at his mother on the team plane when the Wi-Fi didn\u2019t work; another time, he complained about play calls loudly enough for the offensive coordinator to hear but wouldn\u2019t address the issue directly with the coach.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne time, on a flight home after a loss, one of the assistant coaches asked someone from IT to help him with his computer,\u201d the staffer remembers. \u201cAfterwards the IT person walks away and says, \u2018What\u2019s the point? He\u2019s gonna be gone in a couple of months anyway.\u2019 We had 12 games left! I just can\u2019t imagine anywhere else in the league where the coaches are being talked down to by the IT staff. But that\u2019s the way it had been there forever.\u201d<\/p>\n
Davis, the former employees said, was as hands-off as they come, sleeping in most mornings and never involving himself in personnel decisions. \u201cHe has no idea what he\u2019s doing,\u201d one former staffer said. \u201cHe thinks just like a fan.\u201d Al Davis had worked his way up the coaching ranks and served as the commissioner of the American Football League before taking over the Raiders. His son was simply handed the team.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn a way, he\u2019s great to work for because he lets you do your thing,\u201d one former employee said. \u201cBut he\u2019s nothing like his dad. He doesn\u2019t know anything football. \u2018Oh, my dad liked fast guys? Where are all the fast guys?\u2019 \u2026 It was all about The Raider Way. That thinking is so archaic. It\u2019s not even relevant anymore. They gotta be good football players, too.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tanner Muse was a fast guy \u2014 fast enough to clock a 4.41 in the 40-yard dash ahead of the 2020 NFL Draft. But when Mayock lobbied to take the Clemson safety\/linebacker in the third round, the room was split. \u201cHe was one of those guys who looked the part and ran well, but he was a horrible football player,\u201d one former staffer said. Muse never made the roster, and the Raiders\u2019 2020 draft class dissolved into one of the worst in recent memory. Within 18 months, four of the first five picks were off the team.<\/p>\n
Henry Ruggs III remains in prison after a November 2021 accident in which he slammed his Corvette into the back of a woman\u2019s Toyota Rav4 at 156 miles an hour, killing her. Ruggs\u2019 blood alcohol content was twice Nevada\u2019s legal limit. Cornerback Damon Arnette, picked seven spots after Ruggs in the first round, was released a month later after a video surfaced showing him threatening someone\u2019s life and brandishing multiple guns. Third-rounder Lynn Bowden Jr. was long gone, traded five months after the draft amid struggles in training camp, when the team started to worry he would become a bad influence on Ruggs and Arnette.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
\n Mark Davis (left) and Mike Mayock were left to pick up the pieces after Gruden resigned in 2021. (David Eulitt \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n
A former Boston College safety selected by the Steelers in the 10th round in 1981, Mayock had earned league-wide respect for his work as a draft analyst on NFL Network but never worked in an NFL front office. He leaned heavily on his No. 2, director of pro personnel Dwayne Joseph, and while his scouts loved working for him \u2014 \u201cGreatest guy of all the GMs I\u2019ve worked for,\u201d one said. \u201cIf you did the work, Mike valued your opinion,\u201d added another \u2014 his lack of acumen showed. \u201cHe just didn\u2019t know how NFL front offices worked.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mayock\u2019s inexperience in the role, coupled with Gruden\u2019s gruff unpredictability, left the Raiders in a constant state of chaos. The Brown trade was a disaster. The coach had shipped away two of the team\u2019s best players. The draft misses emptied the roster of young talent, and the reaches in free agency kept piling up. \u201cYou\u2019re always playing with rental clubs,\u201d Guenther said. \u201cWe had so few guys who were homegrown.\u201d In private moments, Mayock would shake his head and steam. \u201cWe\u2019re doing something dysfunctional,\u201d he\u2019d tell himself. \u201cWe\u2019ve gotta fix it.\u201d<\/p>\n
They never did. By 2021, the building started to splinter. The Raiders were now in a sparkling new facility in Las Vegas, where the coaches worked on one side of the building, the scouts another \u2014 an old Al Davis maxim designed to prevent them from \u201cbuddying up,\u201d one former staffer said. The result was two separate draft boards, one stacked by Gruden and the coaches, the second by Mayock and the scouts. Confusion reigned.<\/p>\n
\u201cI worked for six other head coaches and three other GMs, and I\u2019ve never heard of a team having two draft boards,\u201d one former staffer said. \u201cI told myself, \u2018There\u2019s no way we\u2019re gonna survive this.’\u201d<\/p>\n
The Raiders whiffed on another first-round pick that spring, when Gruden let offensive line coach Tom Cable talk him into drafting Alabama tackle Alex Leatherwood 17th overall. \u201cAlex was a freak athlete, but you gotta do the scouting,\u201d one source said. Leatherwood was cut before his second season.<\/p>\n
By then, Gruden was gone. He resigned five games into his fourth season after The New York Times uncovered a slew of racist and misogynistic emails he\u2019d sent Bruce Allen, his former GM in Tampa, while working for ESPN. Gruden, currently an analyst with Barstool Sports, is suing the league, alleging the NFL intentionally leaked the emails. A trial date is set for May 2027.<\/p>\n
Special teams coach Rich Bisaccia, whom Mayock had known since their days as college counselors at the Joe Namath Football Camp in the 1970s, took over on an interim basis. The Raiders won their final four regular-season games \u2014 earning the franchise\u2019s second playoff berth since 2002 \u2014 before dropping a wild-card heartbreaker in Cincinnati. After the playoff loss, Mayock pushed for the interim tag to be removed from Bisaccia\u2019s title. Instead, Davis fired both.<\/p>\n
\u201cHad they kept Bisaccia,\u201d Mayock says now, \u201cthey\u2019d be chasing (AFC) West division championships as opposed to the first pick in the draft.\u201d<\/p>\n
Raiders’ leadership since 2017<\/p>\n
SeasonCoachGMRecordAFC West finish<\/p>\n
2017<\/p>\n
Del Rio<\/p>\n
McKenzie<\/p>\n
6-10<\/p>\n
3rd<\/p>\n
2018<\/p>\n
Gruden<\/p>\n
McKenzie<\/p>\n
4-12<\/p>\n
4th<\/p>\n
2019<\/p>\n
Gruden<\/p>\n
Mayock<\/p>\n
7-9<\/p>\n
3rd<\/p>\n
2020<\/p>\n
Gruden<\/p>\n
Mayock<\/p>\n
8-8<\/p>\n
2nd<\/p>\n
2021<\/p>\n
Gruden, Bisaccia<\/p>\n
Mayock<\/p>\n
10-7<\/p>\n
2nd<\/p>\n
2022<\/p>\n
McDaniels<\/p>\n
Ziegler<\/p>\n
6-11<\/p>\n
3rd<\/p>\n
2023<\/p>\n
McDaniels, Pierce<\/p>\n
Ziegler, Kelly<\/p>\n
8-9<\/p>\n
2nd<\/p>\n
2024<\/p>\n
Pierce<\/p>\n
Telesco<\/p>\n
4-13<\/p>\n
4th<\/p>\n
2025<\/p>\n
Carroll<\/p>\n
Spytek<\/p>\n
3-14<\/p>\n
4th<\/p>\n
2026<\/p>\n
Kubiak<\/p>\n
Spytek<\/p>\n
With that first pick, the Raiders are expected to take Mendoza, whom the team hopes will usher in a new era in Las Vegas. Thanks to the failed trade with Baltimore<\/a>, Crosby is still on the roster. And second-year GM John Spytek shelled out $281.5 million in contracts during the initial wave of free agency, upping the talent for a team that\u2019s needed to do so for years.<\/p>\n \u201cAntonio (Pierce) was given a s\u2014 roster. Pete (Carroll) was given a s\u2014 roster,\u201d one source said of the Raiders\u2019 two coaches to precede Kubiak. \u201cThe underlying issue is that Mark has never really respected the GM position. He let Gruden pick Mayock. Then he let Josh McDaniels pick his best friend as GM, Dave Ziegler. Now he lets Tom Brady do the same thing with Spytek.\u201d<\/p>\n