Jay Gruden figured the first Sunday as a fired NFL head coach would be a tough one. So instead of watching his former team defeat the Miami Dolphins this past Sunday, the former Washington Redskins' head coach, who was fired earlier this month as his team started the season 0-5, decided to spend the afternoon outside while enjoying one of his favorite hobbies.
"I didn't watch it, actually. I was playing golf," Gruden said during a recent appearance on "The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz." "I thought that first Sunday was gonna be hard, so I decided to go out on the golf course … a couple of buddies of mine, had a good day. I was happy for some of the players and a few of the coaches that got their first win."
An NFL coach in some capacity since 2011, Gruden admitted that he's enjoying his newfound free time since being relieved of his duties as the Redskins' had coach. He did add that he is hoping to figure out what to do next sometime within the next month.
"I just gotta leave my options open, try to talk to some people and see if there's anything I can do to help in some capacity somewhere doing something," said Gruden, who went 35-49-1 as the Redskins' head coach. "I don't know what that is yet … I really don't. But right now, I'm enjoying my time off. [Coaching] is quite the grind, but as you know, when coaches work as many hours as you do, you take that away, there's a lot of hours in the day that you gotta figure out what to do with."
Gruden tackled several topics with regard to his time in Washington that included the culture that currently exists within the organization. While he didn't speak ill of the Redskins' brass, Gruden alluded to some of the restrictions he faced during his team in D.C.
"I can't say anything negative about the culture right now," Gruden said. "When you're the coach and you wanna put a team together, you have a vision of what that should look like, and sometimes, it doesn't match with what other peoples' vision, and that's when problems occur, but on the flip side of that, when you are a coach, you don't have GM responsibilities and you don't have total say, then you have to do the best with what you can with what you're given. And I think that's what we tried to do as a coaching staff. We did not always see eye-to-eye on some of the decisions that were made, but at the end of the day that's how it is in most buildings, quite frankly. So it's our job as coaches to work with what we have, put the pieces together the best way we can and try to find success, and unfortunately, I couldn't get that done in the last year and a half."
Gruden also confirmed reports that not everyone within the organization was fully on board with the decision to draft quarterback Dwayne Haskins with the 15th overall pick. Haskins has played in just one game thus far, throwing three interceptions in Washington's Week 4 loss to the New York Giants.
"The fact of the matter is that we had to get a quarterback in the draft somewhere at some time," Gruden said. "And Dwayne is a great prospect, and we chose to take him as an organization. Unfortunately, people are excited when you take a guy at 15, you wanna see him play right away, but it was our professional opinion that he wasn't quite ready to step in and play in the first five games of the season in my opinion. It will take some time for him. He only played in 13, 14 games as a college player. He's very raw, but he's very talented and it will take some time with him. Just wasn't ready when I was there, and maybe he'll get ready in the next coming weeks.
"It was a direction we decided to go. There were some other quarterbacks some people liked in that building later on the draft, but we chose Dwayne and decided to make the most of it. He's still got a chance to be a great player, without a doubt, it's just gonna take some time."
While his first stint as an NFL coach didn't end on a high note, Gruden hopes to land another job in coaching sometime soon. If an opportunity doesn't present itself soon, he showed great interest in becoming a temporary member of the media.
"I can do a lot of things. I have a face for radio, I'd be good at that," he joked. "TV, I think I'd be pretty good at that. I have pretty good perspective from a coaches standpoint, offensive and defense and special teams and referees. I mean they need some help in the league as far as these referee calls, they're killing people right now.
"I think it would be kinda fun to try to dabble in that a little bit, but at the end of the day, I feel like coaching is what I wanna do. It's what I was born to do. I love the game, I love being part of it, I love leading people, young groups of men and trying to get them better and maximizing their potential. Unfortunately I did a poor job in Washington but hopefully, I get another crack at it."
