Jon Gruden meets Johnny Football in Internet Invitational

Gruden posted the opening clip himself, and he sounded happy about it.

Jon Gruden

@BarstoolGruden

This was awesome! Great to see Johnny Football.

Barstool, Fore Play and Viva all pushed the same clip within an hour, and they all called it a legendary link-up. The football resume backs that up. Gruden won a Super Bowl with Tampa Bay and talked ball on Monday Night Football for years. Johnny Football won the Heisman at Texas A&M as a redshirt freshman and went in the 1st round to Cleveland. That made him the most talked-about college quarterback of the decade before his NFL career fell apart. Two guys who know what it's like when the whole country watches your every move, sitting in a hunting lodge with a turkey mounted on the wall.

The event itself is a lot bigger this year. Season 2 grew from 48 players to 64 and the purse went from $1 million to $4 million. Episodes come out twice a week on YouTube until the November 12 finale. Both Manziel and Gruden made the 64-man roster, but don't expect the same thing from each of them. Manziel shows up as a real stick. Gruden is pretty openly there to be the hype man who gives the speeches, not to carry anyone's scorecard.

For Gruden, the whole day ran through Barstool. He signed a multi-year deal with the company in late 2024, 3 years after he resigned as Raiders head coach over his leaked emails. Since then he's become a regular across the network. That same Monday morning he was on Wake Up Barstool doing his NFL Week 7 recap, taking the hosts' questions on whatever stood out from Sunday.

Wake Up Barstool

@wakeupbarstool

“Coach, there was one play I was watching yesterday and as soon as it happened, I was like, what did Jon Gruden think about that?”

0:44

So that's where Gruden is in 2026: a Monday morning film-room guy on one Barstool show and the golf event's emotional support coach by the afternoon. Manziel's role is simpler. He's a former Heisman winner who can actually play, dropped into a field full of creators who mostly can't, which is exactly why Barstool put him in the opening scene.

There's a lot of tournament left. Episode 2 drops later this week, and the real test is whether Johnny Football's game holds up once the clips stop being lodge chatter and start being shots that count for a share of $4 million. If Gruden's pep talks don't help his group's scorecards, at least they'll make good content.