Jon Gruden’s career is likely over.
The Raiders coach admits that he sent multiple controversial emails in 2011 and we truly had no idea how bad they would be until Monday. Gruden is already in some hot water with the NFL for using racist imagery in a 2011 email and things might not get any better for him with the league after he admitted on Friday that he also took a vulgar shot at NFL commissioner Roger in that same collection of emails.
The New York Times leaked out some emails that were sent to the Raiders and they are just as bad, if not worst than what we already knew about.
In the emails, Gruden called the league’s commissioner, Roger Goodell, a “faggot” and a “clueless anti football pussy” and said that Goodell should not have pressured Jeff Fisher, then the coach of the Rams, to draft “queers,” a reference to Michael Sam, a gay player chosen by the team in 2014.
In numerous emails during a seven-year period ending in early 2018, Gruden criticized Goodell and the league for trying to reduce concussions and said that Eric Reid, a player who had demonstrated during the playing of the national anthem, should be fired. In several instances, Gruden used a homophobic slur to refer to Goodell and offensive language to describe some N.F.L. owners, coaches and journalists who cover the league.
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The report goes on to state that he also “denounced the emergence of women as referees, the drafting of a gay player and the tolerance of players protesting during the playing of the national anthem, according to emails reviewed by The New York Times.”
His messages were sent to Bruce Allen as well as a slew of others while he was working for ESPN as a color analyst during “Monday Night Football.”
On Monday, Smith said in a Twitter thread that Gruden’s email is evidence that the fight against racism is ongoing.
“This is not about an email as much as it is about a pervasive belief by some that people who look like me can be treated as less,” Smith wrote. “The email has also revealed why the comments by some with powerful platforms to explain this away are insidious and hypocritical. It is as if there is a need to protect football above the values of equality, inclusion and respect. The powerful in our business have to embrace that football itself has to be better, as opposed to making excuses to maintain the status quo.”
