We know how much Jon Gruden is paid, so can we stop coaching rumors?

Last year it was the Oakland Raiders. That was the team Jon Gruden was going to leave ESPN to come coach.

It's my favorite tradition of the offseason, really. After every season since Gruden has been out of coaching, there are one (or two, or three, or four) teams with openings that are connected to Gruden. And we get to hear numerous reports that he's coming out of the booth to coach. Really though, we've said the past seven years that Gruden will return to coach the (fill in the blank team) and he just re-signs with ESPN — but seriously this time he's really going to do it! Hilarious.

Let's just say that Gruden has a good and smart agent who knows how to get him raises on his "Monday Night Football" job.

As it turns out, Gruden has a really, really good agent. According to James Andrew Miller, an author of a book on ESPN, Gruden is the highest paid employee at ESPN at .... ready? $6.5 million!

Can we please keep this in mind the next time some Gruden rumors are floated about?

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According to SI.com, only six current NFL coaches make more than $6.5 million (h/t to USA Today's For the Win): Seattle's Pete Carroll ($8 million-plus), New Orleans' Sean Payton ($8 million), New England's Bill Belichick ($7.5 million), Kansas City's Andy Reid ($7.5 million), Baltimore's John Harbaugh ($7 million) and the New York Giants' Tom Coughlin ($7 million). NFL coaches routinely work hours that are fairly inhumane. Gruden was famous for waking up at 3:17 a.m. to start his work day. Then he, and every other coach, would put in 80, 90, 100 hours and be at the mercy of players executing a plan. The 20-hour days figuring out a tendency in the defense to waste when the tight end is wide open and drops a sure touchdown in his hands. There's far less stress and a ton more sleep involved in being a color commentator one night a week.

And Gruden does well at his job. Some don't love his unbelievably positive outlook on every player in the game he's calling (count me in this group) but he provides some really insightful commentary at times. Obviously he knows the game in and out. Gruden has little to prove as a coach, either. Perhaps he could come back and have a decade or more of success to start a Hall of Fame conversation (he's just 52; Carroll is 64 and Belichick is 63 and they coached in last year's Super Bowl), but why? He has a Super Bowl ring. He has a job that reportedly pays him as much as or more than 25 NFL head coaches whose moods fluctuate and lives change based on the outcome of a football game every Sunday. And don't get me started on how absurd it is to connect him to open college jobs.

Will that stop the rumors next offseason? Probably not. But hey, I'm sure then it will really be The One NFL Job That Will Pull Jon Gruden Away From $6.5 Million At ESPN! So funny.

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Frank Schwab is the editor of Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at shutdown.corner@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @YahooSchwab