Offseason Drama Behind Them, Jon Gruden's Raiders Actually Look...Good

If you tuned out the Raiders back when Antonio Brown was turning his toes into Dippin' Dots and leaking guerrilla internet videos, it may be time to check back in. 

The Raiders are no laughingstock. In fact, they could easily sneak into the AFC wild-card race. And they are a player or two away from doing much more in the not-too-distant future.

It's all thanks to a couple of guys who looked like they would be the butts of season-long jokes just two months ago: Jon Gruden and Derek Carr.

Gruden has coached the Raiders to a 3-4 record against a schedule ranked the third-toughest in the NFL by Football Outsiders. The Raiders have beaten two pretty good teams (the Colts and Bears), and they fell just short of upsetting the Texans in Houston on Sunday, which would have made them playoff sleeper darlings.

Gruden's offense is ranked 18th in points, 14th in yards and eighth in Football Outsiders' defense-adjusted value over average: not spectacular but not bad for a team that looks a lot like the Bengals on paper.

As for Carr, he's first in completion rate (72.1 percent), seventh in passer rating (103.6) and fifth in DVOA. Carr also has the second-lowest sack rate (3.5 percent of dropbacks) to Patrick Mahomes, a sign of both quality offensive line and quarterback play, plus a healthy offensive scheme.

Carr is racking up all these impressive efficiency stats with the help of the most anonymous receiving corps in the NFL:

• Former Chargers deep threat Tyrell Williams, who leads the team's wide receivers with just 20 catches for 307 yards and five touchdowns despite missing two games with a foot injury;
• Pint-sized fifth-round rookie slot receiver Hunter Renfrow and undrafted rookie Keelan Doss, who have 24 combined receptions;
• Second-chance prospect Zay Jones and former Packers return man Trevor Davis, both acquired during the season (nine catches);
• Veteran journeymen Ryan Grant and J.J. Nelson, both released in favor of Jones and Davis (eight catches);
• And let's not forget tight end Darren Waller, a former Ravens bit player who has suddenly become Tony Gonzalez, leading the Raiders with 46 catches and 496 receiving yards.

This is the sort of receiving corps that's used as an excuse when making quarterback arguments: My guy's stats only look bad because he has no one to throw to except Darren Waller and Hunter Renfrow! Instead of making excuses, Gruden and Carr have cobbled together an efficient passing game with an assist from impressive rookie running back Josh Jacobs and a veteran line.

The Raiders remain critically shorthanded on defense, which is why the Packers could stomp on the accelerator and drop 42 points on them two Sundays ago. But when you compare the talent on both sides of the ball to the team's record, especially against a tough schedule, it's clear just how good a coaching job Gruden has done.

Quinn Harris/Getty Images

But let's get real: This isn't about drawing up clever plays for Waller. This is about keeping the team together after Brown spent training camp trolling general manager Mike Mayock and hand-painting his helmet as if Raiders headquarters were a Pottery Barn.

It's easy to forget the precise details of Brown's rapid late-summer descent from charming 1960s Joker tomfoolery to something closer to the Joaquin Phoenix version of the character. But there was a point in early September when Brown appeared to have long-conned the organization for months so he could leverage his way onto the Patriots. And the sabotage occurred while the Hard Knocks cameras were rolling.

The fallout from Brown's acquisition and departure threatened to open a rift between Mayock and Gruden. Brown melodramas have a history of fracturing locker rooms (see: last year's Steelers). The Gruden-Carr relationship has always been a case study for sideline psychoanalysis. And, of course, the Raiders were forced to replace the focal point of their offense with a nothingburger just a few days before the start of the season, which is the sort of thing that can send a team into a tailspin.

The Raiders should be falling apart, with Gruden on the hot seat (or locked in a steel-cage match with Mayock) and Carr the subject of mock-draft replacement speculation. The fact that Oakland is quietly muddling along near .500 is a remarkable accomplishment. And with the seventh-easiest upcoming schedule, according to Football Outsiders (they face the Chargers twice, the Bengals, Jets, Broncos, plus lots of welterweights), the Raiders could become much more than just a pesky "tough out" in the second half of the season.

It's tempting to imagine how good the Raiders might be with Brown, though Brown was probably destined to leave a smoldering impact crater no matter how they tried to handle him. Maybe we should imagine them with the less-combustible Amari Cooper instead. Had they not traded Cooper for a first-round pick (Johnathan Abram, a promising-but-injured safety), the offense could be special.

While we're at it, we can also imagine Oakland with Cooper and Khalil Mack. The Raiders received quite a haul (including the draft pick that became Jacobs) from the Bears in exchange for Mack, with first- and third-rounders left over for next year. But the Raiders might well be challenging the battered Chiefs for the AFC West title if they had kept both Mack and Cooper. That shouldn't be surprising, since they went 12-4 with a Carr-Cooper-Mack core in 2016 but blew it up shortly after Gruden's arrival.

Don Juan Moore/Getty Images

The Raiders have operated at cross purposes for the last two seasons: trading Mack and Cooper for mysterious reasons and then ignoring the warning labels and trading for Brown; making Moneyball-flavored moves with one hand (acquiring lots of first-round picks!) and then cutting against the analytical grain with the other (drafting a running back with a first-round pick!). The Raiders often looked like they weren't sure what they were doing but were determined to do as much of it as possible, even before Brown tried to make them look like chumps.

Maybe Gruden and ownership didn't have the most coherent building plan over the last season-and-a-half. But the Raiders are now exceeding expectations. Those extra draft picks will bring reinforcements from a loaded receiver class next year. Abram's return will help, too. And Carr is again looking like the guy who received some 2016 MVP hype.

The Raiders are enjoying a real rebuilding year, the kind during which we talk about stars such as Waller emerging, rookies developing and a sneaky wild-card run that gets players to buy in to the system, not the kind during which we talk about how great the team's 2021 draft class will look.

It's a far cry from what we expected in late August. And it's much more worthy of your attention than all that reality-TV drama.

Mike Tanier covers the NFL for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter: @MikeTanier.