Jon Gruden’s much anticipated and highly orchestrated return to the Raiders on Tuesday was a coronation, a welcome-back party, a reality TV spectacle, a production with all the glitz and glamor of, appropriately, a Las Vegas extravaganza.
Opinion
As Gruden often preaches, practice makes perfect, so might as well get started. Two years from now, the show moves to the Strip.
But what a wild and crazy place this is going to be in the meantime. The one-time boy-wonder head coach comes back to the Raiders as a grown man, if a boyish-looking celebrity, enriched by a massive contract reportedly for 10 years and $100 million that comes with several hefty demands: invigorate a franchise, restore the legendary luster, rehabilitate the quarterback, give Oakland’s Raiders fans something to cheer about – say, a Super Bowl – on the way out the door.