Jon Gruden is going back into the broadcast booth on Aug. 22, when he will serve as the play-by-play announcer for the Buccaneers' second preseason game against the Chiefs. The assignment puts him in the booth for a game that is already being framed as Ronde Barber’s night, not his own.
Gruden made that clear on Thursday when he spoke with local Buccaneers media and said the broadcast is supposed to be “Ronde’s show,” even though he is the one handling play-by-play. He said he is “fired up” for the gig, but also admitted, “I’ve heard I’m doing play-by-play, but I don’t know if we’ve solved anything.”
The matchup matters for more than nostalgia. Gruden won Super Bowl XXXVII as Tampa Bay’s head coach, and now he is being put back in front of the same fan base for a preseason telecast that will lean heavily on a familiar name from the franchise’s past. He said, “We’ve got a great young team here, we’ve added some players,” and added that the goal is to “celebrate the Bucs and hopefully kick off what’s going to be what’s going to be a really special season.”
The setup is also unfinished in the way real broadcasts often are. Gruden said there will be a production meeting on August 17 to “finalize the cadence,” which is his way of saying the division of duties between him and Barber has not been fully locked in yet. He is set to be the play-by-play voice, but he also said Barber is “the star” and that the broadcast will be “Ronde’s show,” leaving the exact balance of the telecast to be sorted out before game day.
That meeting will come just five days before the game, and Gruden said the three-and-a-half-hour broadcast is meant to be relaxed rather than rehearsed. He said he had a lot of fun doing broadcast work for nine years, was very fortunate on Monday Night Football, especially the years with Mike Tirico, and still studies football all the time. He also said he lives right down the street and is still a big fan of the Buccaneers, which helps explain why this return feels less like a guest appearance than a homecoming with a live microphone.
What happens next is simple enough: the production meeting on August 17 should settle the cadence, and then the booth opens on Aug. 22 with Gruden and Barber together for a game that is being sold as much by personality as by preseason stakes.
