Former Super Bowl-winning head coach Jon Gruden may be planning on returning to coaching in the near future, but he isn’t coming back to the Buccaneers.

That became clear when veteran Tampa Bay Times beat writer Rick Stroud broke the news that Dirk Koetter had received assurances from the Glazers that he would be back in 2018.

I’ll be honest. My first reaction was that I’d heard this all before.

The Glazers assured Gruden that he would return in 2009 before firing him two weeks after the 2008 season. And in 2013, both former general manager Mark Dominik and former head coach Greg Schiano were told they would return prior to the season finale before being fired after losing at New Orleans, 42-17.

Bucs head coach Dirk Koetter – Photo by: Getty Images

But I knew Stroud’s reporting was correct because I the latest information I received on Thursday pointed to Koetter’s return. That’s why I wrote about the likelihood of Koetter seeing a third season as Tampa Bay’s head coach at 9:15 a.m. ET in my latest SR’s Fab 5 column – Koetter or Gruden? – over six hours before Stroud got confirmation and broke the story.

Here is what I wrote Friday morning:

Because of how hard the team has played and the amount of injuries the team has sustained, it is not a foregone conclusion that Koetter will be fired after Sunday’s game.

Unless the Glazers want to pursue former head coach Jon Gruden, offer him the job and he accepts, I don’t necessarily believe Koetter may be fired.

I don’t see a clear-cut upgrade out there aside from Gruden, and perhaps the Glazers don’t either.

Gruden may be putting feelers out there that he wants to coach again, and that his preference would be the Buccaneers, but would he actually pull the trigger and come back to the sidelines after nine years? We’ll have to wait and see. We’ll find out by next week.

And would the Glazers want Gruden back? Despite the victories he produced, Gruden wasn’t the easiest coach to work with the first time around with high-profile spats with former general manager Rich McKay and wide receiver Keyshawn Johnson. Perhaps they feel Gruden belongs in the Bucs Ring of Honor at the stadium rather than on the sidelines.

Or perhaps the Glazers know that bringing Koetter back after a disappointing 4-12 or 5-11 season would be a very tough sell to the fan base in the offseason and that Raymond James Stadium certainly wouldn’t be more full in 2018 as a result. Heck, even the Stick Carriers are off the Koetter bandwagon.

Gruden’s return would electrify the fan base and likely raise the level of play among the Buccaneers players, too. He’s a master motivator and I have little doubt that he could take the Bucs to the next level. I’m not sure Koetter can.

But if Gruden doesn’t come back to coach in Tampa Bay either because he wasn’t asked, or he said no, then prepare for Year 3 of the Koetter regime.

So what happened?

Was PewterReport.com’s reporting faulty all along? No.

Former Bucs coach Tony Dungy – Photo by: Getty Images

Before the Bucs’ playoff game in Philadelphia in 2001, Stroud broke the story that Tony Dungy would be fired and replaced by Bill Parcells. Dungy was fired, and the Glazers had discussions about Parcells replacing him, but it didn’t happen. Something changed.

As it turns out, Parcells was advised at the last minute that the Bucs’ salary cap situation was a mess, which it was, and that he would literally have a year or two to win a Super Bowl before the team had to purge some aging, high-paid stars. Parcells ended up turning down the Bucs after Dungy was fired, but that didn’t mean what Stroud wrote was wrong just because Parcells ultimately didn’t replace Dungy. It’s just that things changed.

Here’s what I do know. There were discussions between the Bucs and Gruden’s representatives during the 2017 season to gauge interest in a possible return as Tampa Bay’s head coach. PewterReport.com knew that and reported the interest and I discussed his possible return in several SR’s Fab 5 columns and 2-Point Conversion columns.

NFL Network’s Mike Silver, who has good connections with the Raiders organization, reported on Sunday that “the Bucs made an unsuccessful run at Gruden.”

One reason I am not reporting that it’s a done deal is… wait for it… the fact that it’s not a done deal. I am adding a report that the Bucs made an unsuccessful run at Gruden. I think we all know what likely happens next. https://t.co/Klwi4h0fhe

— Michael Silver (@MikeSilver) December 31, 2017

That contradicts what Stroud reported last night on Twitter, that he was told by Bucs officials and Gruden representatives that discussions did not take place about a possible return. I believe that’s what Stroud was told, and that’s what he reported in good faith. And it’s obvious why he was told that – because Koetter is staying on as head coach and the Glazers don’t want it to be made public that they were considering replacing him with Gruden.

Yet I know for a fact that there was interest on both sides and some discussions, but ultimately it was not going to happen for several reasons.

The first is over value. A few weeks ago I’d gotten wind of Gruden’s potential contract demands, which are rumored to be $10 million per year over 10 years – fully guaranteed. Gruden makes $6.5 million annually from ESPN and another $2 million per year from endorsements. So it would take more than $8.5 million for Gruden to maintain his current value in the NFL. But I don’t think this is necessarily about money to Gruden.

I think the desire for the 10-year guarantee is because of what happened to him during his final coaching stops in Oakland and Tampa Bay. First, he never got to finish the job of taking the Raiders to the Super Bowl as he was traded in the middle of the night because former owner Al Davis didn’t want to give him the lucrative contract extension he was seeking following the 2001 season.

Former Bucs head coach Jon Gruden and co-chariman Joel Glazer – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR

A 10-year, guaranteed contract literally buys the time Gruden – or any head coach – would want to build a program and sustain it in a league where the patience of owners and fans is short, and there are at least five head coaching vacancies every year.

The second reason is trust. In Tampa Bay, Gruden got fired after he became the franchise’s all-time winningest coach in 2008 during a 9-7 season, and that came on the heels of signing a five-year contract extension with the Bucs in the same year. Gruden felt like his firing, which came out of the blue on January 19, was totally unjustified, and if he was going to return to the Bucs he would want a contract that would make him virtually unfireable for a decade.

The Glazers fired him once before, and after seeing them roll through four coaches in nine years since his departure I don’t think Gruden fully trusted the Glazers. He and the Glazers have mended fences over the years, but I believe Gruden still carries a grudge over being fired. That’s obvious every time Gruden puts on an FFCA (Fired Football Coaches Association) visor or shirt. A mammoth, long-term, guaranteed contract would be the only way to buy the Glazers’ trust and commitment.

I don’t think there is any way the Glazers would make a $100 million commitment to Gruden, if that indeed was his contract demand, and I don’t blame them for it. There is no guarantee that Gruden’s second voyage with the Buccaneers would be as successful as it was the first time with three NFC South division titles and a Super Bowl.

Raiders owner Mark Davis, who is Al Davis’ son, is very close with Gruden and made overtures about him returning to Oakland twice since Gruden has been with ESPN and out of coaching. To this day, the long-time members of the Raiders organization are still upset with losing Super Bowl XXXVII to the Buccaneers with their former head coach. If Gruden is going to come back to the NFL, I’m guessing that Davis is thinking it’s going to be as a Raider – not a Buccaneer.

Former Raiders coach Jon Gruden – Photo by: Getty Images

If the reports about Davis’ contract offer aligning with Gruden’s desires are true, and that he’s upping the ante by offering Gruden a stake in the team’s ownership, that might be too good to turn down. Oakland is the franchise that gave Gruden his first shot at becoming a head coach and his deep, emotional roots to the Raiders rival those that he has for the Buccaneers.

I’m guessing the Glazers would never want to surrender part of their ownership to Gruden or anyone else, so I can’t blame them for not getting in a bidding war with Davis and the Raiders.

Oakland also has a young, talented quarterback in Derek Carr that Gruden could work with, just as the Bucs did with quarterback Jameis Winston, so there is plenty of appeal. With the Raiders moving to Las Vegas in two years, Davis needs star power to sell to the Las Vegas community to fill the stadium and attract corporate sponsors. With such a huge financial commitment to uproot the Raiders to Las Vegas, it only makes sense that Davis would make a similarly huge financial commitment to bring Gruden back as the head coach.

The third reason that Gruden won’t be coming back to Tampa Bay is an educated guess on my part. I’ve heard from several sources that Gruden is concerned about his legacy being tarnished if he were to come back to the Buccaneers. It’s one thing to go back to Oakland and never take the Raiders to the Super Bowl because Gruden didn’t do that in the first place – although he came close twice.

Former Bucs head coach Jon Gruden – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR

It’s another thing to come back to the Buccaneers and try to live up to winning a Super Bowl in 2002. Gruden had six more years to win another one in Tampa Bay and ultimately couldn’t win another playoff game despite attempts to do so at home in 2005 and 2007. The Super Bowl would always be the measuring stick for success in Tampa Bay, and despite that being the goal of all 32 NFL head coaches each year, that’s a daunting task when a guy has done it before in a city and will expected to do so again after being out of coaching for nine years.

Gruden was inducted into the Bucs Ring of Honor this year and perhaps that’s how his story was meant to end in Tampa Bay. Gruden will always be remembered as the first and only Super Bowl-winning head coach by fans. And that could be the way he wants it, rather than as the coach who came back and wasn’t as successful the second time around like Joe Gibbs was in Washington when he came back from 2004-07. Additionally, Gruden will remember his own time in Tampa Bay as one that ended prematurely in 2008. He may not want to go down that road again without any guarantees.

As I wrote in Friday’s SR’s Fab 5, it was going to be Gruden or Koetter in Tampa Bay in 2018 because of the lack of quality head coaching candidates. Presently there is no clear-cut improvement over Koetter available.

Because the Glazers were unwilling to meet Gruden’s demands, Gruden essentially made up the Glazers’ minds for them. They’re keeping Koetter.

Bucs head coach Dirk Koetter – Photo by: Getty Images

Out of respect to Koetter, the Glazers will deny that they had any interest in bringing Gruden back, and that’s understandable because they they have already announced that Koetter will return next season as the Buccaneers head coach. But I will stand firm in my reporting on PewterReport.com based on the information I have gathered over the last three months. I wouldn’t have written half of what was reported on PewterReport.com if I didn’t have good intel.

In the end, Koetter’s feelings might be hurt if he believes there was interest in the Bucs replacing him with Gruden, but he just needs to put that aside and focus on winning more games in 2018 or he will be replaced.