- Feb 17, 2007
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Kawakami: Mark Davis goes in-depth on how he chased Jon Gruden for six years and how he finally got him
By Tim Kawakami 3 hours ago
Mark Davis upheld one of his father's finest traditions today: After the official presser to announce the Raiders' hiring of Jon Gruden, Davis stuck around in an informal session with a handful of us and answered every one of our questions until we ran out.
During the presser, Davis said he has wanted to hire Gruden from the beginning of his ownership — which would be six years and four coaches ago.
We asked Davis about that, got more details, and heard Davis say that he first and finally got strong indications that Gruden was ready to take this job during the Raiders' late-October/early-November stay in Sarasota, Florida, close enough for Davis to take a drive to Tampa to meet with Gruden.
Here's the transcript of the post-presser sesssion. It's good.
Literally from the beginning of your ownership you wanted Jon Gruden to be the coach?
Mark Davis: Yeah, that was it. That started six years ago with me.
So when was your first call to him?
Davis: Probably right after Reggie was signed (January 2012).
And what happened?
Davis: Well, we had a six-year dance.
You once told me he never said no, he never said yes.
Davis: Correct. Just never said yes, never said no. The process, you wouldn't even believe me if I told you. So I'm not even going to go through it. But it's finished. He's the head coach of the Oakland Raiders and the organization's going to move forward.
What was your reaction after six years when you finally hear that he's saying yes, he'll come back?
Davis: I was a little apprehensive, still. But I got the feeling that this time it was the real deal. And it turned out to be.
How many times have you gotten close before?
Davis: I'd say four times. My frequent flier miles between San Francisco to Dallas to Tampa … did that maybe 15 times.
So you have a favorite hotel in Tampa?
Davis: I do. And I have a laundromat, where I was doing my laundry.
What changed it this time?
Davis: He was ready. He was ready to do it. And I just want to give him everything he needs to be successful. Because that's my only goal.
Would you have hired him no matter how the season went? If he was ready, would you have hired him no matter what?
Davis: You know, that's a tough answer. It's really tough to answer that. I would want to say off the top of my head, probably yes. But at the same time … I don't know. I really can't answer that.
How disappointed were you with this season?
Davis: This season was a big disappointment.
Because of expectations?
Davis: There was a lot to it.
What did you think the day your dad traded Gruden?
Davis: You know, at the time, I didn't know he was going to beat us in the Super Bowl. But you think about it, it's not a bad trade, just if you've got a regular coach or anything.
But no, I was disappointed. Because I liked Jon and I liked his fire and felt that he was a good representative of what the Raiders are all about.
So you got closer to him since then?
Davis: Oh absolutely. I didn't really know Jon back when he was coaching. I knew Bruce — I would hang with Bruce Allen most of the time back then, or talk with him, and Jon was dealing with my dad.
But over the last six years, I've really gotten to know Jon and his family. And that I think was the important part of it. Getting to know the family and the family believing in the Raiders, believing in me, believing in Marc Badain, Tom Delaney … we went down there with computers and everything else to help try to convince him that the Raiders organization is where he should be.
Were you worried he might take the Buccaneers job?
Davis: I wasn't worried about anything, to be honest.
Was it awkward for you to be talking to him while you still had a coach?
Davis: Well, it's interesting … when we went down to Sarasota this year, Tampa was only an hour away. So it was easy for me to take a ride down there and talk to him.
And at that point in time I just wanted to know if he could help me figure out how to fix this franchise. Because I felt that there was a lot of regression. Obviously, the offensive side of the ball. The defense hadn't started clicking at that point in time.
So I just wanted to know if he had some input for me. And that might be the first time I started to get the inkling that, hey, maybe this time he might be the one to come back and fix it rather than helping me try to figure it out.
What does it mean to you to have all these former players here for this?
Davis: It goes back to my thing, once a Raider, always a Raider. That is something that we live by. We have a lot of mottos here and we actually believe in them. It means the world to me for these guys to be here, because everything I do is to try to make this organization better.
I don't coach it, I don't play, but I try to do anything I can to help to make it better. And obviously the pride that these people have in the organization and to be here today, I think they feel that we might've made a move that could affect that.
When did you actually get a firm yes from Jon?
Davis: Um, just about 10 minutes ago? (Laughs.)
Did you get it on Christmas night?
Davis: We spoke Christmas Eve, yes.
Before the game?
Davis: Correct.
And did you get …
Davis: I felt pretty confident that he was all-in. And that's the term that we were using in our discussions and everything, are you all-in? And I never wavered from all-in. And this time he didn't waver, either.
Would this have been possible without the incoming Vegas money?
Davis: You'd have to ask Marc Badain. Because I asked him the same thing.
But in your mind, is Vegas a part of this?
Davis: No. Absolutely not. Like I said, it was six years ago that I started on this. At that time, we were trying to get a stadium built in Oakland and I wanted Jon Gruden to run the Raider franchise. At that time with Reggie McKenzie.
Do you think if he'd come then you'd have a stadium in Oakland?
Davis: If, ands or butts. I don't know. I don't know. It's hard to say. But he loves it here. He absolutely loves it and coming back and playing the last two seasons in Oakland was a big part of our discussions. He wants to play here, he wants to help bring a championship here.
Does he have final say on all personnel decisions?
Davis: No, Reggie and Jon are going to be working together. You should ask them those questions.
Do you have concerns that he didn't have much success in his final years in Tampa Bay?
Davis: No, again, it's not just the head coach on a football team. It's the coordinators and the coaches that they hire to coach the players.
And I think that might be, not that we had bad coordinators, but maybe we didn't have the right ones with Jack and those guys. You have to have the coaching staff, so I'm not concerned about his past.
Like I said, when I got down there to that Fired Football Coaches Association, his room down there in Tampa? It's amazing the amount of work this man puts in. And the studying that he's done. He's got a database that is beyond comprehension of just football.
And I used to live with somebody that did the same thing. So I have faith in him. And the one thing I know is he hates to lose as much as I do. That's something that we just do not like to do.
Do you see some of your dad in him?
Davis: Oh I see a lot of my dad in him. Oh yeah, absolutely. The passion for the game.
What do you think your dad would think of this move?
Davis: I don't know. I really don't know. It's hard to say, you know? It's really hard to say.
You know, my dad was all about the players. And there's no question about that. I am, too. He said, 'Whenever you take over you're going to have a problem because you are too close to the players.' And that's reared its head a few times with me.
But this is just something that I think is fantastic for this organization. Stability. A decade goes pretty dang fast.
If Jon hadn't come back, would you have kept Jack?
Davis: I believe that I would've sat down with Jack and we would've figured out coordinators and assistant coaches and things like that and try to figure out how to re-invigorate the franchise through Jack, yeah, absolutely.
Jack did a lot for this organization. I don't want to say that he didn't. This building right here should be called the Jack Del Rio Performance Center. He came in and said that we've got to be in the 21st Century and this is part of Jack Del Rio right here and I appreciate that from him.
With this amount of money spent on Gruden, what are the immediate expectations?
Davis: No expectations immediately. Listen, the organization has leadership now that I believe in. Completely. And somebody that's going to work their tails off to make it happen. If we don't win the first game … well, maybe he does go to Alcatraz, like he said. (Laughs.)
No, listen, I'm not going to be putting that kind of pressure on Jon at this point in time. We're going to be the Raiders and I want this organization to be the best it possibly can be. And I think that this is a big step in that.
When you're chasing Gruden for six years, what's your final reaction? How did you celebrate that?
Davis: Well, I haven't celebrated it yet. I had apprehension, but I also believed, like I said, back in Sarasota, when we talked and he started talking about he could possibly be the one to help fix it … I started to believe it because it was a different conversation than we'd had in the past. You know, in the past he wanted to do it, wanted to do it, but he wasn't ready … but I just felt it.
He said yes right then?
Davis: No, we talked. We talked about being all-in. And it's hard … the one thing we've been able to do over these six years, everybody knows I've been infatuated with him or whatever to get him here, but they really didn't know how deep our conversations were going, how far along we were in that to make it happen.
Somebody asked me, what was harder — to get the 31 votes to move to Las Vegas? Or to get Jon Gruden? And by far to get Jon Gruden was the toughest.
How many conversations did you have with other people who had worked with Gruden? What did they have to say?
Davis: Again, he was a Raider, so I knew the people here in this organization that worked with him. For me, it was going down there and getting to know him. Like I said, I didn't know him that well when he was coaching. I was pretty much with Bruce Allen in that side of the building.
And then going down there and seeing him work, as hard as he works … he does get up at 3 in the morning and goes and starts watching film. And cut-ups, different plays, the same play from 15 different camera angles. He's got all that to look at.
When I started going down there six years ago, he had the passion and five years ago, he had the passion, four years ago, he had the same passion. He still has the passion.
Were you there at 3 o'clock with him?
Davis: I have been there at 3 'clock in the morning with him. And I will say, though, I've lost sleep probably the last two weeks because he's back there so I'm up at 3 or 4 in the morning (when he's) giving me a call.
We know what your father talked with him about then. What do you talk about then? Do you get into the Xs and Os at all?
Davis: No, no, no, no. You know, I understand football pretty damn well. But I don't know it well enough to meddle into Xs and Os. I talk theory. And those types of things. But we didn't really get into any of that stuff, to be honest. It was just making sure that we were both ready. That I was all-in, he was all-in, and it would be a smooth transition, and make sure that his family … that was probably the biggest thing for Jon and for me is making sure that his family was all-in. And like I said, his mom was one of my biggest cheerleaders. I think with Cindy and with Kathy, they turned the tide.
Are you finalizing a lease to play in Oakland for 2019?
Davis: That would be up to Marc Badain to talk to. I hope we are.
Is Jon going to report to Reggie or are they both reporting to you?
Davis: They work together.
No hierarchy?
Davis: Not really. They'll work their working arrangement out. They'll figure it out. Reggie wants to win; that's what Reggie wants to do. Jon wants to win. And I want to win.
You've got your stadium deal and you've got Jon Gruden.
Davis: Yeah, it's a pretty good year.
What do you do now?
Davis: Well, we've got to build the stadium. And we broke ground a month and a half ago. Should be ready in two years. That's really exciting.
And PSL sales?
Davis: I don't know when that's going to start and all that. That'll be at some point in the near future.
Was this a $100-million deal?
Davis: You'd have to ask Badain. (Laughs.) But 10 years, $100 million is easy for you guys to repeat, so that's why that number is out there.
Is it back-loaded?
Davis: I don't want to comment on that.
Does the idea that this is a $100-million deal create the reality that Gruden is No. 1 over McKenzie?
Davis: No, as I said, the money part isn't even really a factor in this. That's done. That's already been taken care of. Let's get together and win. In the football side of the business, if you give somebody $25 million a year, that's going to eat into your cap, that's going to make it so you have to juggle players and everything else.
But in the front-office side, you don't have to do that. It's just becoming pretty evident that there's really parity in the type of players that teams have — some teams have better players than everybody, obviously. But there's parity, so where do you get the edge? Where can you get it? And I believe it's in the leadership and the coaching and all of that.
Was an ownership stake ever discussed?
Davis: No, it wasn't. And that's something … I could go through this with you guys. There's people that come out there, that make false statements, they write a false story and everybody — and I'm not going to say every one of you, but most of you — follow it and pick it up and make it as fact. And then one guy goes on TV for 20-minute railing against Jon Gruden for something that's absolutely not true, was never true, and never is going to be true.
The only interest Jon Gruden has in the Raiders is he's interested in the Raiders. That's it.
—Reported from Alameda
