Jon Gruden trying to ‘get to the bottom’ of incident that has Raiders reportedly considering suspending Antonio Brown, still has ‘hope it all works out’

Today Jon Gruden took to the podium for his scheduled press conference. It’s game week, so the conversation should have been about that. Instead it’s all about the latest Antonio Brown drama that reportedly could result in a suspension after a blowup Brown had in practice at GM Mike Mayock for fines he incurred due to previously missed practices.

In the wake of it, Brown is once again not at practice while the Raiders figure out how to proceed. Here is what Gruden had to say

Q: Has Antonio Brown been suspended?

Gruden: “I’m not going to get into any of that stuff right now. We’ll have an official announcement later, but I’ll be happy to answer any other questions.”

“Obviously he wasn’t here today and when we have some information for you, we’ll give it to you.”

Q: Preparing as if he might not be in the lineup?

Gruden: “Yeah, and we’ve been doing that. Obviously we’ve been in training camp the last four weeks we have been practicing without him and preparing to play no matter who’s injured, you have to adapt, unfortunately we had to adapt again today but we’re really excited about our receiving corps.”

Q: Is the decision going to be made with you and Mark and the GM?

Gruden: “Yeah, I mean, we’re still getting to the bottom of everything, so all I can do is comment on the football team, I’m out here on the field coaching the guys that are here and we’ve got a lot of guys working hard. We’ll give you the information on Antonio when we have it official and correct and right. I don’t want to speculate any further. Can’t do it.”

Q: How is the focus of the team?

Gruden: “I love it. It’s great. There’s going to be a lot of opportunities to feel like there’s some distractions here, but we’ve been through this for a while. We even had Hard Knocks covering this every day. We had cameras following us around all day, so this isn’t anything new to our guys and this whole situation isn’t new to us either. We’re playing Monday night and we’re going to play 53 or 47 guys and we’re going to be ready to go.”

Q: Do you think the Hard Knocks cameras had anything to do with how this situation is playing out?

Gruden: “I blame the media for everything (laughs). Naw, I don’t. I don’t, I don’t. I’m emotional about it and I hope you understand why. I think a lot of this guy. I think Antonio is a great receiver. And I think deep down he’s a really good guy. So, I’m frustrated, I not going to say any more about it, hope it all works out, but I don’t have anything official to say about anything else until I get all the facts and that’s what we’re going to do.”

Q: Obviously the offense is geared for getting him the ball...

“We’ve been out to practice every day and we’ve adjusted without him. We never knew sometimes when he was going to practice, so we’re good at it. We’re good at adapting and adjusting. Unfortunately, but I’m going to keep my fingers crossed and I’m going to just say to you I’m excited about the guys that we do have and we’ll do the best we can.”