Jon Gruden still wants to return to coaching

It's been more than three years since someone with access to Jon Gruden's emails to former Washington executive Bruce Allen deliberately leaked them to major publications in an effort to force Gruden out.

Gruden still wants back in.

"I miss it," Gruden said on the latest edition of the Fitz & Whit podcast. "I’m scratching that itch, though, right here — I’ve had more people come in here in the past few weeks than probably any coach in the league. College guys, NFL guys. I'm studying every day, scratching that itch. I would like one more chance to do it because I thought we had that team on the right trajectory. We were 3-0, we beat three straight playoff teams, and I thought we had a good young team and it really crushes me to see how everybody went different directions real fast. So deep down I'm kind of hoping someday I get a chance, but I'm definitely not counting on anything. So I've reinvented myself.”

Regardless of whether Gruden's emails that were sent when he was working not for the NFL but ESPN should have prompted the end of his second run with the Raiders, the powers-that-be had access to those materials no later than June of 2021. If he was going to be pushed out, it should have happened then. Or it should have waited until after the 2021 season ended.

For a league that is supposedly obsessed with the integrity of the product, someone undermined the integrity of an entire season by deliberately throwing a wrench in the Raiders' gears after the season started.

Hopefully, the truth will come out. That'll happen only if Gruden is able to keep his litigation against the NFL and Commissioner Roger Goodell in open court, and not in the league's preferred forum — the secret, rigged, kangaroo court of arbitration.

Still, with each passing year, it's becoming less likely that Gruden will get back in. It's still not impossible, but it remains unlikely.