Former Buccaneers head coach Jon Gruden and former Buccaneers cornerback Ronde Barber will be sharing a booth for a preseason game next month.
The Buccaneers announced that Gruden and Barber will be on the call for their August 22 home game against the Chiefs.
Gruden has said he wants to be a play-by-play announcer, and now he will be, at least for one preseason game, for the franchise he coached to a Super Bowl XXXVII victory after the 2002 season. Barber was a Hall of Fame player on that team.
Gruden coached the Buccaneers from 2002 to 2008 and had two stints as head coach of the Raiders, from 1998 to 2001 and from 2018 to 2021. His second stint ended when he was pressured into resigning over language he had used in emails he sent while working as a broadcaster for ESPN. Gruden is suing the NFL for leaking those emails to the media.
The Buccaneers removed Gruden from their Ring of Honor when those emails surfaced in 2021, but reinstated him to the Ring of Honor last year. And now the team has hired Gruden to be part of its preseason broadcasts.
