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Jon "THIS GUY" Gruden thinks a quarterback is pretty good. He thinks he's so good he'd give up a first-round pick for him. Because first-round picks are apparently best wasted on players who were worth no more than a fourth-round pick one year ago.
Jon Gruden on ESPN: "If I were a coach, I'd offer a first-round pick to the Redskins to get Kirk Cousins on my team."
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) August 19, 2013
And that, dear Jon, is why you are no longer a coach in the National Football League. Your perpetual hatred for young players doomed the Bucs. Your may gush about every player you see from the booth, but you'd rather coach a collection of grumpy old men, especially at quarterback.
Things haven't been all good since Jon Gruden and Bruce Allen got fired, of course. In fact, they've been mostly pretty bad. But at least we now have a Buccaneers team with plenty of talent, a lot of young talent indeed, with two young quarterbacks with physical gifts (and question marks). And all that without having to hope that Luke McCown is going to turn into anything other than a field goal holder.
Remember the starters that Gruden got into the building? Rob Johnson, Tim Rattay, Luke McCown, Bruce Gradkowski, Chris Simms, Jeff Garcia, Brian Griese? No thanks. And trading for Kirk Cousins would be just the thing, too. The guy has one start in the NFL and was a fourth-round pick a year ago. That one start was pretty good, sure.
But 37 pass attempts against the Cleveland Browns shouldn't fundamentally change your view of the guy. Especially not when he threw two interceptions in 9 attempts against the Falcons, or managed 31 yards on 10 attempts against the Seahawks. This love affair with Cousins is even worse than the group of people who are convinced Ryan Mallett has to be really good, because Bill Belichick touched him once.
Whoever hires Jon Gruden, if he ever gets hired again, had better pair him with a strong general manager who won't cave in to his ridiculous fancies every other day. Before you know it he'll give up two first-round picks to trade for Monte Kiffin. To play quarterback.