John Lynch won a Super Bowl on a Jon Gruden-coached team — the 2002 Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Having played for Gruden, the San Francisco 49ers general manager was shocked by the comments that led to the coach’s departure from the Las Vegas Raiders. His emails, some up to 10 years old, revealed racist, misogynistic, and anti-gay language directed at NFL personnel. Gruden resigned as the Raiders’ coach on October 11th.
Lynch joined KNBR over the weekend and revealed that his former head coach has expressed remorse for his “horrifying” comments.
“I had the opportunity during the bye week, I reached out, and was surprised he actually called me back, and had a good conversation,” Lynch said, via 49ersWebZone.com. “He feels a tremendous amount of remorse, as he should. And that’s what you do; you reach out to people and say, ‘Hey, I’m thinking and praying for you.’ And I simply said, ‘Hey, when you’re ready, give me a call,’ and he did.
“We shared some thoughts — I’ll leave that private — but he is extremely remorseful and understands he’s got to make up for that however he can. And I think those are his actions. And that’s the only thing he can do at this point.”
After leaked emails on his racist comments to describe NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith surfaced, it appeared that Gruden would survive the backlash and continue to coahc the Raiders in 2021.
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The New York Times put the nail in his coffin when they uncovered that Gruden used homophobic and misogynistic language in a series of emails he sent several years ago to former Washington general manager Bruce Allen and others around the league.
Gruden has been quiet ever since his resignation, but there appears to be a storm brewing soon.
