Most Oakland Raiders fans have been on cloud nine ever since news broke that in all likelihood, Jon Gruden will be returning to the team as their next head coach. But for many, their excitement was tempered when Alex Marvez reported that Gruden would be hiring Greg Olson as his offensive coordinator for next season.
If indeed Jon Gruden gets hired as @Raiders HC, source tells @sportingnews that Greg Olson is expected to leave @RamsNFL to become his offensive coordinator.
— Alex Marvez (@alexmarvez) January 5, 2021
Most fans recall Olson from his stint as offensive coordinator of the Raiders during Derek Carr’s rookie season. And what most people remember from that season was a rather boring dink and dunk offense, not that dissimilar to what we saw with Todd Downing this season though not nearly as rudimentary as Downing’s system.
But despite the fact that Olson wasn’t exactly lighting the NFL on fire in his first stint with the Raiders, fans should not use his lackluster history of calling plays as a guide to judge his potential stint as Gruden’ s offensive coordinator.
Because let’s be honest here, anyone Gruden hires for the OC position will be nothing more than a glorified assistant. Gruden will design the plays, not the OC. Gruden will design the scheme, not the OC. Gruden will game plan for each week’s opponent, not the OC. And Gruden will call the plays, not the OC.
This is going to be Gruden’s offense and whoever is named as OC will do nothing more than help implement that offense. Olson and Gruden have a history together and Gruden probably feels like that history will allow him to trust Olson to follow his lead and implement his offense the way he wants it.
Are there other names that would be better than Olson? Sure. Should going with Olson cause concern based on his track record as an OC? No.
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