Raiders news: FanSided ranks Jon Gruden in the middle of the pack

Jon Gruden is entering his third season back at the helm of the Raiders, and recently, he was ranked in the middle of the pack by FanSided.

After 17 years away from the Raiders organization, Jon Gruden returned to the fold in the January of 2018, taking over for Jack Del Rio, who led the Raiders to their first playoff appearance since 2003 in 2016. Gruden inherited a broken roster with big contracts, and sub par players, and quickly got to work breaking it all down.

Of course, he made some moves that irked Raider Nation, including trading away Khalil Mack, who was a generational talent that the team drafted in 2014. In exchange for Mack, Gruden got two first round draft picks among other assets, and he then added another first round pick by trading away Amari Cooper during the 2018 campaign.

All of those moves set the Raiders up to have five first round draft picks over the last two drafts, and in turn, the roster has gotten better, and younger overall. They are now in a position to return to being an actual contender in the AFC, which is where Gruden had the franchise the first time around.

After winning four games in 2018, the Raiders had a three game improvement in 2019, though it could have been much better. The Silver and Black navigated a tough early season schedule to be sitting at 6-4 entering their final six games, but would lose five of six to close out the season.

Despite Gruden clearly being a very good head coach, he was ranked in the middle of the pack in a recent rankings, sitting behind guys like Bill O’Brien from the Houston Texans, and Ron Rivera from the Washington Redskins to name a few.