Sometimes You Gotta Tell Gruden To Shut Up

Jon Gruden did an interview on Sirius which the Sacramento Bee transcribed, but only the parts about the Raiders. So it’s mostly Gruden extolling the virtues of Jeff Garcia and JaMarcus Russell, but he does share a fun story about Rich Gannon.

“Rich Gannon, in the middle of an audible, against the Tennessee Titans on Monday Night Football, we were in a situation where we wanted to run one play or another, we either ran the play that was called or we canned it to another play. And right out of nowhere Gannon saw something better and he started a live audible. So I started yelling at him from the sideline and in the middle of his audible [he says], ‘Black 350…Shut up, leave me alone!…Black 350.’ He told me to shut up in the middle of an audible. I will never forget that as long as I live.”

I’ve often wondered why quarterbacks don’t use their audibles to convey demoralizing messages to the defense. It seems like the perfect time.

“Blue 38! Blue 38! Hey, Charles, didn’t your mom just die of a painful cancer? Hut!”
“Red 90! Who’s that with his hands on John’s wife’s knee? Red 90! Hut!”

Someone must have tried that by now.