Lincoln Kennedy still remembers the last thing Jon Gruden said to the Raiders’ locker room after the infamous “Tuck Rule” game in New England, and the line carried a lot of weight in hindsight.
On the Jim Rome Show this week, Kennedy said Gruden addressed the team after the 2002 playoff loss to Tom Brady and the Patriots with a blunt warning: “As long as you’re Raiders, they’ll never let you win.” Kennedy added, “That was the last words that Jon Gruden said to me as a head coach.”
That loss came at a turning point for Oakland, and Gruden was gone soon after, shipped to Tampa Bay in a deal that reshaped the AFC landscape. His presence with the Buccaneers was a major part of their 48-21 win over the Raiders in the Super Bowl the next year.
Kennedy also described what Al Davis told him later when the trade had already gone through. After getting a call from Davis months later, Kennedy said he went to the owner’s office after returning from a Pro Bowl.
Davis explained the move by saying, “I had to do it.” When Kennedy asked what he meant, Davis said, “I had to trade him.
I hate it when teams get involved with coaches that are under contracts, but at the same point, I asked for everything and Tampa gave it. I had to let him go.”
Kennedy said his response was that the Raiders needed a new coach, and he immediately pushed for Bill Callahan. “We have to hire within.
We’re on something,” Kennedy recalled saying. He added, “We’ve got something that’s brewing, that’s going to be good, but we have to fine-tune it.
Let’s hire from within. That’s how Bill Callahan came up.”
Looking back, Kennedy said he never imagined Gruden would end up facing the Raiders in the Super Bowl. “Never in my wildest dreams would I ever expect that we’re going to see Jon Gruden in the Super Bowl.
Never in my wildest dreams,” he said. At that point, Kennedy noted, he still had not played in a Super Bowl himself.
He had reached the AFC Championship Game against a Baltimore Ravens team led by Ray Lewis, and that club went on to win the title.
He said the Raiders were waiting for their chance, and the “tuck rule” game opened the door to a possible Super Bowl run before everything changed. Kennedy also called the AFC Championship Game against the Tennessee Titans “probably the most physical football game I ever played.”
Gruden’s second run with the Raiders ended in turmoil in 2021 after decade-old emails were leaked. Before that happened, Oakland had started 3-0 and Gruden’s offense was averaging 30 points per game.
Since November of 2021, Gruden has been locked in a legal fight with the NFL, alleging in his 2021 lawsuit that “Through a malicious and orchestrated campaign, the NFL and Commissioner Roger Goodell sought to destroy the career and reputation of Jon Gruden,”
A jury trial in that case is expected to begin around May of 2027.
Mark Davis also revisited Gruden’s exit during Pete Carroll’s introductory press conference in 2025. Davis said he had expected Gruden, whom he brought in during 2018 on a 10-year contract, to provide the football-side stability the organization needed.
Instead, Davis said, “His head was chopped off. And we were put in a really bad position as an organization.”
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