ESPN’s Jon Gruden compares Julio Jones to Hank Aaron on Monday Night Football

Jon Gruden outdid himself, and even parodies of himself, during Monday Night Football

Jon Gruden’s joy and positivity know no bounds. He makes Indianapolis Colts Andrew Luck seem like an antisocial curmudgeon. He makes Joel Osteen seem like an depressed pessimist.

The ESPN analyst outdid himself –and perhaps even outdid parodies of himself– during Monday Night Football when he compared Julio Jones to Hank Aaron. His comparison went so far, and was so enthusiastic, that he seemed to be mere moments away from conducting a renaming-ceremony, bestowing on Julio Jones the nickname of one of baseball’s greatest players of all time. Hammerin’ Julio.

Of his main man, best friend, and adopted son Matty Ice and Hammerin’ Julio “Hank Aaron” Jones he said, “Julio Jones: too strong, too fast, and Matt Ryan can’t throw the ball any better.” I’m surprised he didn’t think to compare Matt Ryan to Michael Jordan. You know, because the both play sports that involve a ball, their first names start with the letter “M,” and they both have two-syllable last names.

I’m mostly relieved that Gruden didn’t think to compare Matt Ryan to Ryan Matthews. Both football players. Pretty  much the same name. Playing in the same game, too. The metaphor combined with the cleverness of that realization would be the ultimate observation for Gruden.

In addition to odd comparisons, Gruden had some very sage observations and interesting comments (by “interesting,” I mean “bizarre”) during Monday night’s game.

“Matt Ryan is athletic.” I guess as a professional athlete, we shouldn’t take that for granted.

“It’s like tag team wrestling with these running backs.”

“Great coverage by Barwin” when the coverage was technically by Eagles outside linebacker Connor Barwin’s head after he was beat by at least two yards.

“Old fashioned hamburger drill at the line.”

“Grinder candidates.” (I’m assuming he meant Grinder, not Grindr, but still. What does that even mean??)

Jon Gruden fans (or haters) had some other awesome ideas for Grudenisms and Gruden’s next career move.

I’ll end this with a metaphor of my own:

John Gruden is John Madden.

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