October 21, 2021

The Raiders Had More Black Players Than Any NFL Team: Then Jon Gruden Took Over The Roster.

posted by rumple to football at 05:43 PM - 4 comments

Yikes. Of all the teams to saddle themselves with a racist head coach who was rapidly making the roster more white, it had to be the Raiders?

posted by rcade at 06:14 PM on October 21, 2021

Maybe they should go back and analyze the rostering from Gruden's time with the Buccaneers and also his first Raiders stint.

I don't know if they would find the continuation of a pattern or not.

Two tidbits I remember from Gruden's tenure with the Bucs are that young, developing QB Shaun King got relegated in favor of older, slower veteran Brad Johnson after Gruden arrived, but on the other hand, Gruden sorrowfully said that Dexter Jackson's departure in free agency after their Super Bowl win was a devastating blow to the team. He wanted that guy on his squad.

He may have been systematic in his approach to race and rostering, but it may also be possible to show that in certain cases, he approached player valuation on an individual basis.

All in all, woven in among the times of turmoil, the Raiders have been favored with a string of good fortune. They were fortunate to have Art Shell, fortunate to have Reggie McKenzie, and are now fortunate to have Derek Carr and Mike Mayock.

posted by beaverboard at 12:36 AM on October 22, 2021

It seems to me it could just as easily be unconscious bias in edge cases as deliberately racially selecting the team. Like a lot of things, it would only take a small bias to add up in a high turnover sport with large rosters like football.

Still racism but more complicated and interesting than a more discursive kind of deliberately racist selection?

posted by rumple at 08:27 PM on October 23, 2021

No complaining about emails in 2011, but of course now you can make anything racist if you try hard enough. He spoke old school with no racial or homophonic intent, the things we said years ago has been taking out of context and made to break good people down. Like I said if you look hard enough you can find fault with everything and with the National Enquirer type of media it's a free for all. My opinion and mine alone so don't waste your time trying to show me the "error of my ways".

posted by ic23b at 05:15 PM on October 25, 2021

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