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Oakland Raiders coach Jon Gruden certainly pulled no punches during his recent press conference after the team’s 27-3 loss to the Seattle Seahawks. With his team falling to 1-5 on the season, it’s led to plenty of frustration from fans, players, coaches and everyone in between.
Apparently, Gruden doesn’t have interest in players being frustrated over playing time, though. As Matt Schneidman of the Bay Area News Group revealed, the Raiders coach was asked about cornerback Rashaan Melvin being unhappy with his Week 6 snaps.
It didn’t exactly go over well.
Gruden on former starting CB Rashaan Melvin, who was unhappy with PT in London: “I heard there was a Twitter report out there. Melvin’s on his seventh team, I think. He’s had different techniques. Maybe he’s confused. I don’t know. I’ll talk to him. But he’s got to play better.”
Melvin, who’s only 29, has jumped around a bit in his NFL, but after stints with the Baltimore Ravens and New England Patriots, he had a strong two-year stretch with the Indianapolis Colts. This led to the Raiders signing Melvin as a free agent this offseason in an attempt to bolster the secondary.
Raiders’ Confusing Cornerback Decisions
At times this season, Melvin has been one of the team’s better cornerbacks. He has 20 combined tackles, seven passes defensed and one interception through six games. But his playing time has been tough to gauge and jumped around a lot.
As Football Outsiders reveals, Melvin played 88 percent of the defensive snaps in Week 4, but the numbers fell to 62 percent in Week 5 and just 11 percent last week. As far as how things looking moving forward, that will be a hot-button topic. After all, 2017 first-round pick Gareon Conley was benched completely in Week 6, as the cornerback didn’t play a single snap on defense.
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Raiders HC Jon Gruden Calls out Unhappy CB Rashaan Melvin in Presser