Jon Gruden's long-form sitdown with Ricky Williams is the kind of interview that only really works when the host has actual film-room cred and the guest has lived three lives since he last carried a football. Gruden brought the notes, the snacks, and a literal pile of Texas-themed trading cards. Ricky brought the dreads, the gray polo, and the deadpan that has defined his post-NFL existence.
The teaser for Gruden's full sitdown with the Heisman winner.
The headline bit is exactly the one Barstool ran with: Gruden asks what Ricky has been doing for the last 15 years, and Ricky — without blinking — says he's a professional astrologer. If you've followed Williams's whole post-football arc through holistic medicine and spirituality, this is the most Ricky Williams answer he could possibly give, and Gruden plays it perfectly straight.
Ricky's deadpan 'professional astrologer' answer to Gruden's what-are-you-up-to question.
From there it actually gets into the football stuff, and Gruden leans on the prop he clearly loves most: trading cards. He pulls out a stack of Texas Longhorns cards and asks Ricky to build a Mt. Rushmore of Texas football, which — when you're the guy who won the Heisman in burnt orange and still owns one of the more iconic college careers ever — is a layup of a prompt.
Gruden hands Ricky a stack of Texas football cards to pick his Longhorns Mt. Rushmore.
Ricky flips it back on him, too, asking Gruden which running backs he most enjoyed coaching across his Raiders and Bucs years — a fair question for a guy whose backfields ran through names like Charlie Garner and Warrick Dunn. And later in the conversation, the two of them get into the cultural shift around marijuana, which lands differently coming from Williams given how much it shaped — and at times derailed — his actual NFL career.
Ricky flips the script and grills Gruden on the best backs he ever coached.
That's the whole charm of Gruden Goes Long working here. It's a Heisman winner who became a yoga-and-astrology guy sitting across from a coach who still talks ball like it's third-and-7. Two completely different second acts, one table full of notes, and a stack of Texas cards to keep the football part honest.