So here's the story of the moment with Jon Gruden:
- Late Tuesday night Glenn Carver of WREG in Memphis reported Gruden had an offer from Tennessee that included an ownership stake in the Cleveland Browns thanks to the Haslam connection. Aside from potential complications in Gruden still receiving buyout payments from Tampa Bay for at least another month, John Infante of The Bylaw Blog quickly followed up with this tweet:
- This morning on Mike & Mike, Gruden appeared for his weekly Wednesday segment during football season. They opened the segment half-jokingly asking Gruden about this particular story, including the portion about the Browns. You can listen to the full segment with Gruden right here. His response to, "Is there any truth to this whatsoever?"
Current NCAA rules would prohibit this Gruden-Browns nonsense unless the ownership stake was first donated to Tennessee.
— John Infante (@John_Infante) November 28, 2012
"No there isn't. Uh...I should probably tell my wife that because it does involve her and my kids. But no, there's no truth to that, I'm just excited about Monday Night Football and getting ready for the Giants and the Redskins."
Mike Greenberg then followed up with some joke about getting a cabinet position in the Tennessee government, and Gruden interrupted them to say:
"I mean, I just...I apologize, I really don't have time to get into all that stuff. I like what I'm doing, I'm just trying to hang on to the job I have to be honest with you. So let's leave it at that, and get into the real nuts and bolts of the Mike and Mike show."
So, in the continuing saga of hearing what you want to hear...on the one hand, Gruden denied the report and said there's no truth to it. On the other hand, there could be no truth to the Memphis report specifically (and/or the Browns portion); Gruden could be denying the report and not denying interest. And the way he quickly and somewhat awkwardly wanted to move on to the next topic? Sounds like a page right out of the "Something is going on here" playbook.
Take it for what you will, analyze every word, do what we do. I, for one, am encouraged.
Welcome to Wednesday.