Gruden’s constant hints of coaching return now beyond tiresome

It won’t be long before Jon Gruden will have more years in the broadcast booth than he spent on NFL sidelines as a head coach.

Gruden coached 11 years in the NFL, four with the Raiders and seven with the Buccaneers. He won one Super Bowl.

Now he’s entering his ninth year as an ESPN announcer, and by 2019, his announcing career will have lasted as long as his coaching career. And then maybe even longer.

That means his coaching career is probably over. Teams aren’t likely to hire a coach who hasn’t been on the sidelines for nine years.

And the Bucs are putting him in their Ring of Honor, a sign they think his coaching days are over. But for some reason, Gruden likes to keep his name in the coaching mix. It sounds like an ego thing.

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Arians’ new book, like the man himself, is a breath of NFL coaching fresh air

In the new book by Arizona Cardinals coach Bruce Arians called “The Quarterback Whisperer,’’ Arians compliments Chuck Pagano of the Indianapolis Colts while giving a not-so-positive evaluation of many of his colleagues.

‘’There are a lot of assholes in the world of coaching – backstabbing is common and a lot of guys have personal agendas – but Chuck isn’t one of them,’’ Arians wrote in the book he did with Lars Anderson. “He’s a good, decent, hard-working man who is also a hell of a coach.’’

Most coaches wouldn’t talk about their fellow coaches the way Arians did.

But then Arians isn’t most coaches. He speaks his mind.

That is why his book is interesting. He doesn’t sugarcoat things.

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Parole was reasonable, but it still feels like O.J. is conning us

You obviously know that O.J. Simpson was granted parole Thursday.

It was hard to miss.

When has a parole hearing for a robbery been televised live nationally?

Once it was announced he was paroled, the Huffington Post headline was, “The Juice is Loose’’ even though he may not be paroled before Oct. 1. The New York Times put the news on the top of its website, and the Washington Post had a picture on its first web page.

That begs the question: What is it about O.J. Simpson that still has a hold on this country?

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Matt Ryan makes Super Bowl loss worse with dumb ad appearance

Thanks to the invention of the DVR, I rarely watch commercials. I just zip through them until the program starts again.

But when I was watching a show the other night, I could see several athletes were featured, so I stopped to watch it.

It’s been out for a couple of weeks so you’ve probably seen it, but it opens with Michael Jordan saying, “ You want to know the secret of victory? Fail to make the varsity team.’’

Then it goes to J.J. Watt saying, “Start your career as a walk-on.’’

A couple more athletes appear and then Jordan returns and says, “Really want to know the secret of victory?’’ Then it shows Matt Ryan walking on the field after blowing the biggest Super Bowl lead in history and he says, “Defeat.’’

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There’s finally a feel-good story about NFL players and their money

It is no secret that many NFL players lose money on bad investments.

That is why it is interesting that a group of NFL players have made what may be a good investment in a feel good story.

According to the Houston Chronicle, the players made an $810,000 investment in the lemonade business started by a 12-year-old in Austin, Mikaila Ulmer.

But it’s not like they’re just trying to help her get off the ground.

The girl got an $11 million, four-state contract with Whole Foods in 55 stores in the South last year for what she calls Me @ The Bees Lemonade.

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Kaepernick, unlike his critics, remains on the right side of history

As the Fourth of July approached earlier this week, I was curious if Colin Kaepernick would have any comments about the holiday.

It’s not surprising that he not only talked the talk, but walked the walk.

As many of you probably know, he first visited Egypt with former 49er teammate Marquise Goodwin.

Then on July 4th, he was in Ghana, which Kaepernick says he traced his ancestral roots to and from where the ships left Africa on the infamous Middle Passage.

Kaepernick then tweeted about the Fourth of July, “How can we truly celebrate our independence on a day that intentionally robbed our ancestors of theirs.’’

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NFL’s scheduling greed is finally taking a toll

Is the NFL suffering from oversaturation?

That is a question asked a lot last year when the NFL’s TV ratings dropped, although the league blamed first-half plummet on all the interest in the presidential election.

That’s why the ratings will be watched closely this year.

But it’s not the only barometer the NFL and its broadcast partners will be watching. The league also has to be concerned that advertisers aren’t rushing to make buys even before the season begins.

According to Advertising Age, some insiders say the ad buys are the softest since the 2008 recession.

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HBO’s ‘Ballers’ is bad TV but also a guilty pleasure

Here’s a fun fact for your holiday weekend: Would you believe that Sen. Elizabeth Warren says she is a fan of the HBO comedy “Ballers’’?

She revealed this earlier this year in her book This Fight Is Our Fight, claiming she and her husband binge-watched the show on Election Night, which really seems unbelievable.

Anyway,  I first heard about her interest in the show watching Samantha Bee’s “Full Frontal’’ on TBS last week.

The senator said, “It’s actually a story about hard work, a story about perseverance.’’

That’s news to me.

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Tebow has no future in baseball, but the guy can still sell tickets

We now have the answer to one of the two major questions about Tim Tebow’s minor league baseball experiment.

After 64 games in Columbia, we have the statistical evidence that at age 29, he is not a major-league prospect.

What we don’t know is if he will continue to be the box-office smash he was in low-A Columbia now that he’s been called up to high-A Port St. Lucie by the New York Mets.

His showing in Columbia, though, provided no evidence he’ll ever make it in the majors. It’s not only that he hit just .220 with seven errors. That was enough to show a player wasn’t a prospect back in the day when I covered baseball before the NFL became a year-round beat.

But now there is a lot more statistical evidence that baseball isn’t his thing. Starting with Bill James and now with computers, baseball is the dream sport for computer-savvy types.

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Jackson just the latest to prove that no one can compare to Auerbach

The lack of a sense of history in sports – and in real life – is one of my pet gripes.

Everything that happens today is always the greatest or the best ever. The past tends to be overlooked or forgotten.

That brings me to the firing of Phil Jackson by the New York Knicks after a three-year reign of error.

Jackson showed that, for all his coaching skills when he had Hall of Fame players and won 11 titles, he wasn’t cut out to run a team.

To put it bluntly, Jackson is no Red Auerbach.

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