Saints Had Clear Reason For Bringing In Jon Gruden For A Visit

Jon Gruden visited the New Orleans Saints last week, attending practices and working with offensive coaches to engineer their offense around Derek Carr.

Gruden coached Carr on the Raiders from 2018 to 2021, when he resigned amid public pressure after emails containing racist, sexist, and anti-gay remarks leaked. Per ESPN's Katherine Terrell, Saints head coach Dennis Allen defended the team's decision to invite Gruden.

"We've had several coaches come and visit," Allen said. "Obviously, Jon's a guy that has a lot of experience with Derek, and Derek has had his most success under Jon Gruden. And so we felt like bringing him in, having a chance to sit down and visit with him as an offensive staff, with the quarterbacks and just getting some new thoughts and ideas of things we might be able to implement."

Allen added that they're not going to overhaul their scheme based on Gruden's advice. He claimed the Saints have been "pretty effective" on offense despite ranking 28th in total yards following Drew Brees' retirement and 19th during Allen's first year as head coach.

Allen also wasn't concerned about any backlash from welcoming Gruden in spite of his hateful remarks, which Allen didn't directly address or condemn.

"You ask everybody that was involved and they thought it was really beneficial for our football team," Allen said. "And look, we're going to look at any avenue that we can to try to improve."