Getty Images Jon Gruden picks up his first win of 2018.
A win is a win in the NFL. There’s no other way to put it. Sure, players, coaches, and fans can be upset with how a team performed in a win, but nobody is going to complain about getting a “W” at the end of the day. On Sunday afternoon, the Oakland Raiders picked up their first victory of the 2018 season. Make that the first victory during the second stint of the one-hundred million dollar man, Jon Gruden.
It took four weeks for Gruden to pick up a win. It was a hard-fought game that took more than four quarters to complete. The Raiders offense had to score 45 points in order to put this game away. And after giving up 42 points to a rookie quarterback who was playing in his first start, Gruden is nonetheless, far from satisfied with his first victory in over ten years as a coach.
While everybody in the city of Oakland had a field day during Sunday’s win, Gruden is walking away from the game feeling like the Raiders are very far away from reaching their potential thus far. Everybody can see it, and the head coach is not shying away from being brutally honest. Here are a few quotes from his postgame presser on Sunday courtesy of Jerry McDonald of The Mercury.
Not Quite There Yet
“We haven’t fixed anything yet,” Gruden said. “We’ve got a lot of things to get better at. I think that’s pretty obvious. We’ve played good football for stints. We played good football in Miami. We played good football against the Rams. There’s some really good tape against Denver.“But we also have some tape that needs to be fixed . . . it was fun to score, win a game, maybe get that monkey off our back.”
It’s quite clear that the Raiders still have a ton of work to do. Their schedule gets a little bit easier moving forward, but nothing is a guarantee right now for this team that has been full of mistakes. Gruden made it clear that he feels like the Raiders left a ton of plays out on that field and that they are really struggling to make the best of what they got with their weapons on offense.
There’s still a long way to go for the Raiders 2018 season. That could be an excellent thing, or really bad. Even if they were to play like they did against the Cleveland Browns this past Sunday, they could be in a world of hurt against a playoff caliber team. We’re not sure what the Raiders would be considered as right now, but we can probably assume that playoffs are a longshot right now. This team has a lot of work to do.