Keyshawn Johnson sounds off on Jon Gruden: 'He's just always been a fraud to me'

Keyshawn Johnson has strong feelings about Jon Gruden.

On Monday night, the Las Vegas Raiders coach abruptly resigned after a salacious New York Times report detailed multiple emails from Gruden where the 15-year NFL head coach allegedly used racist and homophobic slurs, made sexist comments and personally insulted current and former players, executives and people affiliated with the NFL.

On Tuesday, Johnson — who played under Gruden with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers — chimed in with a blunt statement about his former coach.

“I didn’t know Jon would say things like that and put them in an email, Keyshawn Johnson said on his ESPN radio show. ‘He’s just always been a fraud to me. From Day One, he’s been a used-car salesman.”

Johnson was at the peak of his career when Gruden took over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2002. The duo helped Tampa Bay win the 2002 Super Bowl, but the relationship between Johnson and Gruden soured quickly and publicly.

A video emerged of the star wide receiver yelling at the former NFL coach and Johnson was deactivated for the final seven games of the 2003 season before ultimately getting traded to the Dallas Cowboys the following offseason.

Keyshawn Johnson on Jon Gruden during Super Bowl season

Tony Dungy has been praised for laying a foundation in Tampa before being replaced by Gruden, but Johnson says the NFL community, from fans to other coaches, have always had a skewed perception of Gruden.

“People bought it because he inherited a championship team built by Tony Dungy and Rich McKay,” Johnson continued. “And he came in there with a little different energy than we had with Tony, and it kind of kicked us over the top to get our world championship, which I am grateful for.”

But at the same time I saw who he really was through that journey of getting a championship. Think about it, we won the championship and we are standing on the podium in the Super Bowl and the general manager is tring to raise the trophy and the head coach takes the trophy from him, basically says ‘give me this, this belongs to me.”

Finally, Johnson said former Bucs general manager Rich McKay left solely because of Gruden.

The next year, the general manager leaves in the middle of the season because he doesn’t want to work with Gruden any longer. Think about that, Johnson said emphatically: “Rich McKay left in the middle of the season to go take another job with another team because he didn’t want to be around this guy.”

It’s clear Johnson has always had strong feelings toward his former coach. It won’t be surprising to see more former players and associates share their viewpoints in the coming days.

In his head coaching career, Gruden finishes with an overall record of 117-111 over nearly 15 seasons, with a Super Bowl win in 2002.