Jon Gruden trying to keep “challenging” offseason as normal as possible

[Rusher]

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Raiders coach Jon Gruden thought this offseason’s biggest challenge would be getting the team settled in Las Vegas. Instead, he’s trying to learn how to coach over video conference.

Gruden told the San Jose Mercury News that his team is having as good an offseason program as can be possible with all players and coaches working from home.

“We just got done with a two-hour meeting with the guys,” Gruden said. “Now we’re getting ready for our next meeting. We Zoom and we Zoom and we Zoom. To be honest I’ve just been low key. I’m not saying much. Football is kind of not as important right now to anybody given the circumstances. So I’ve just kind of been under the radar trying to get my team ready to go, get our coaches ready to go and try to be respectful of the rules. All of these rules. It’s nuts.”

Gruden wants the players to be comfortable with the material they’re getting, and he’s trying to make it seem like an ordinary offseason.

“It’s important that we try to keep things as normal as possible when it comes to football,” Gruden said. “We still have to teach a lot of new players our system and we still have to try and bring a lot of new people together and form some camaraderie some how, some way. It’s hard to do. It’s challenging. We’ve got to try to be as creative as possible and that’s what we’re doing. We probably spend more time preparing for the meetings than we’ve ever done before. We’ve learned a lot about technology, we feel like we’re on the cutting edge of utilizing it.”

Gruden is famous for getting to the office very early in the morning. This year is different, with Gruden and his team not going to the office at all.