Shortly after the New Orleans Saints kicked off their offseason training program, former Las Vegas Raiders coach Jon Gruden made an appearance. He attended several practices, kept a watchful eye over quarterback Derek Carr, and met with the Saints’ offensive coaches. He also visited the team’s other quarterbacks.
Saints coach Dennis Allen insisted the visit would not result in any significant offensive changes or an adjustment to their overall philosophy.
“Obviously, Jon’s a guy that has a lot of experience with Derek and Derek has had his most success under Jon Gruden,” Allen said at the time, via ESPN. “I would say, offensively for a long time that I’ve been here, we’ve been pretty effective. So, I don’t see us putting in a whole new offense or doing something dramatic. But if there’s a few ideas that we could take from that, we felt like that would be beneficial.”
At the team’s OTAs earlier this week, Carr addressed the Gruden visit and paid his former head coach a nice compliment.
“I mean, it makes sense. I played my best football for him,” Carr said, via Pro Football Talk. “So if anybody — trust me, I spent a lot of time with him. And so if anybody knows me, knows things about me that I don’t know, he would know it.
“[The Saints coaches] can ask questions that I can’t answer. How’s Derek react after this? I think I’m going to answer it right, but ‘Gru’ will tell the truth.”
Carr believed the visit was a positive one for all.
“I can’t express enough how much I love coach Gruden. He’s family to me,” Carr said. “When all that stuff happened, it was hard for me because you’re mad, you’re frustrated. But you don’t stop loving him, you know? I love that man and what he’s meant to me in my career — I played my best football with him. And I admire him. I’ve seen him around his kids, I’ve seen him around Cindy, his wife.
“I know who he is and I love him deeply like family. So, I can’t express to you how much he means to me and how hard of a time that was for me, when all that stuff was happening.”
Gruden resigned as the Raiders head coach on October 11, 2021 after years-old e-mails filled with highly questionable material became public.
