Josh Harris made an expected move, but it was a crucial first step in rebuilding the Washington Commanders: firing head coach Ron Rivera and launching an internal search committee to hire a new HC and head of football operations. To discuss how to start that rebuild and talk about the rebuilding of a team's culture Jay Gruden joined Chris Russell.
The conversation kicks off with Gruden recounting the human side of being an NFL head coach getting fired – and speaking from his personal experience of his Oct. 2019 firing by then-Washington owner Dan Snyder, which led to Rivera's hiring in Jan. 2020.
"It's disappointing, it's sad. In some ways it was a relief for me at the very end," Gruden told Russell. "I was getting worn down a little bit. But definitely sad because you hire a lot of coaches and they need the job and you wanna succeed for them so they can have success and support their families and equipment managers and trainers and all that. So it's a tough deal for everybody involved."
Switching gears to close the book on the offense with Eric Bieniemy and Sam Howell after a full year, the former NFL offensive coordinator says that Washington's offense is "a long way away, for sure."
"They really don't do anything really well that you can hang your hat on 'this is our identity,' 'this is who we are,'" Gruden told Russell. "Not good enough throwing the football, obviously, consistently. The running game is really below, below way below average that you need to be to compete in the NFC East, for sure. You gotta be able to run the football more effectively and they don't have the people to do it.
"There's a lot of things that they have to address in the offseason here to get that team on track to compete offensively. Quarterback position wasn't good enough. Offensive line, tight ends wasn't good enough. I think receivers have struggled a little bit getting open, maybe it was the scheme, I don't know. But there's a lot of issues moving forward and they have to address them."
And from strictly a performance basis of the offense, Gruden said he was surprised that Harris said Bieniemy would be considered for the head coaching job as "they weren't very good on any regard offensive consistently in 2023." But, when you consider his history throughout his career, then interviewing Bieniemy and considering him is worth doing.
Listen to the complete conversation – which includes Gruden talking about how difficult it is to transition from being a coordinator to taking on the role of head coach for the first time – on the audio player above!
